


Wrong Place, Wrong Time

by speculativefrictions



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Families of Choice, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4920409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speculativefrictions/pseuds/speculativefrictions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a month since the singularity, since Eddie. A month, and Barry only feels worse. His friends, his family, even his enemies are worried about him. Barry wants to move on; he needs to move on. But he's only just beginning to figure out how when his world's turned on its side again.</p><p>And Len? Len just wants to drink his damn coffee.</p><p>[Diverges after S01E23.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cost of Living

Barry Allen was a man of many, many words. Some might even say he was a man of _too_ many words. What could he say? He wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t babble about, well, everything. So why was telling his dad about Wells—the _full_ story—so hard? It wasn’t often that he ran out of things to say, but as he spoke, hushed, into the receiver of the phone, and watched his dad’s face look more and more tired, his words failed him. Maybe it was Barry’s fault for avoiding this conversation, for mostly avoiding his dad for the past month.

Dad had known some of what had happened, of course. Barry’d given him the broad strokes of it when he’d asked for advice. Barry _knew_ it was a lot to take in. Really, he did. But he felt the question he wanted—needed—to ask gnawing at the pit of his stomach. It was like a ball of lightning had built up in him as he’d talked, and it was at its worst now. But when he opened his mouth, the words wouldn’t come out. His dad’s weariness pulled back and into concern. What was probably only a moment of real-time stretched into torment. He took a deep breath. Barry trusted his dad. It was a stupid, stupid question, but he had to. Another deep breath, and then the plunge.

“Dad,” he said, and, wow, that had come out softer than he’d intended. He fought to keep control of his voice. “I…” Breathe, Barry. Breathe. “Are you sure you don’t—I mean, you don’t blame me? That I didn’t save her? You don’t…hate me, right?” As soon as he said it, he’d regretted it. Dad looked sad, almost betrayed. He hadn’t done anything to make Barry ask that, Barry knew. But it didn’t stop the lightning from taking him over, from paralyzing him with fear he didn’t know how to work through, like a coma he wasn’t sure he’d wake up from.

“Barry,” Dad started, stopped. Barry’s free hand squeezed into a ball on the surface between them. More seconds like infinities. More static, as his brain tried to take over, to fill in the blanks of what his dad might say. “Slugger, I could never hate you. And disappointed in you?” Dad’s voice fell off at the end, disbelieving. Barry could move again, could breathe more evenly, now. But he didn’t move, didn’t try to reach out even as Dad’s hand reached for him, stopped only by the window. Barry frowned, and kept frowning. He thought he’d feel better, after his dad had said that. And he did, but it still wasn’t enough to rid him of the current thrumming through his veins. His hands went to the side of the face, and then he was stuttering, speaking louder than he should have, like his dad had flipped some _switch_ inside of him.

“B-but I didn’t save her, Dad. I was _right there_. And I—” Barry was beginning to wrap his arms around himself, trying to make himself small. It made him feel like a kid. He should be able to keep it together, but _every_ time. Every time that he’d talked to his dad, he’d promised— _promised_ —to get him out of here. To find his killer, and bring him in. And now? Nothing would change. Even though so many people knew he was innocent, there was no proof to save him. Barry’s breath hitched. His dad…his dad would _never_ get out of here. He’d always be trapped in Iron Heights for a crime he didn’t commit, and he’d always—

“You did everything that you could do. Sure, you didn’t—” Dad’s voice cut off a bit, the man trying to compose himself. Had he realized what Barry had? Did he know what Barry was thinking? Barry wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, not sure when crying had moved from thought to very real possibility to actuality. “I never wanted you to change who you are to save her, Barry. And there was no way to save her _without_ changing everything that makes you who you are—that makes you my amazing, impossible son.”

But that wasn’t the point. It wouldn’t have mattered, if Barry had been changed. Barry pressed on, “We—Dad, we can’t even get you out of here. I fai—”

“No, Barry.” Dad’s voice was firm, almost angry. “Don’t you _ever_ say that. You’ve done nothing to _fail_ me. Don’t you see? When I found out…” Dad paused, lowering his voice again. “All of this? Learned that you’re him. The _Flash_. It wasn’t _anything_ that I didn’t already know. That you’re a hero. That you want, so desperately want, to do the right thing. That you do just that, every day. And not just as the Flash. That, Barry, _that_ ,” Dad pointed at him, “could never be compromised. Don’t you ever say you _failed_ me, because there’s nothing in this world that makes me _prouder_ than you do. Even _if_ you, Joe, your friends—even if you _never_ get me out of here.” And Barry was crying, again, not out of place in a prison. Plenty of people thought their loved ones could never do wrong. But Barry _knew_. Knew that his dad was innocent, that he’d never been misguided or delusional, never misplaced his faith in him.

“Remember what I told you, when you wanted to do it?” Of course Barry remembered, but that didn’t make it— “There’s a natural order to things. There’s always a reason. And I know that’s hard to accept, Son. But even if nothing changes, we know that she knew that…we’re okay. That we love her. She got to see the remarkable man you’ve become. That’s an incredible _gift_.”

“But the cost was so high, Dad. Eddie—”

“Made his own choice, Barry. Would make it, again, if he had the chance. To make sure that all of you were safe?” Barry couldn’t argue that. Eddie had been a hero. Hell, Barry probably would have done the same, had it come to that. He deflated, at that thought.

“I just…I wish there had been another way.”

“And if you could go back and change it, would you?”

“Dad, I—”

“No. Barry, would you?”

Barry thought about it. He couldn’t ever say that he wouldn’t want to try. Maybe even that he would _have_ to try. But Dad was right. As much as he missed Eddie—as everyone missed Eddie—hadn’t trying to change the past caused them enough grief? Who else might be kidnapped, tortured… No. He wouldn’t. It came out as more of a noise than a word, when he admitted it.

“And neither of them would want you to.”

Barry sat across from his dad. The tears had stopped, for now. He was almost out of words. All that was left was to say the only ones that mattered. “I love you, Dad.” He put his hand up to the glass.

Dad’s hand rose to meet his, and Barry saw him grip the phone tighter. It was a place they had been so many times before, a place that Barry knew they might be in again. “I love you, Barry.” And that would have to be okay, for now.

xxx 

Leonard Snart loved Jitters. Len had been around when the first had opened its doors for fellow lovers of overpriced coffee, had kept going there even when they expanded out farther into Central and Keystone. Would still go to this shop even if it blew up nationally.

It helped that this Jitters was farthest away from the CCPD, and Len could usually avoid any unwanted officers. He _could_ have moved, he supposed, when the Flash had cleared his record. But this one was his. When combined with his gut feeling to lay low for the moment and avoid the ire of Barry Allen, it made a compelling argument to stay put. The risks kept him from pushing his luck. For now.

But, apparently, either he or the kid had worse luck than Len had thought because here was Barry Allen. Walking into _his_ Jitters, when Len was _in there_. Perfect. It took Flash ten seconds to realize that Len was sitting in front of him and look him in the eye, Flash’s own widening almost comically. Len held the contact, refusing to back down. He couldn’t place any emotion on Barry Allen’s face other than sheer panic—the Flash looked as if he _really_ wanted to bolt.

Len could never leave well enough alone.

“Barry!” he called from his table, nearly giving the barista a heart attack. Usually, Len spoke in the shop to order, to thank the workers. But the Flash’s presence was far from the usual. “You made it.” Allen had the sense to reign the suspicious plain on his face as he approached. “I was starting to think you’d cancelled. Again.” More confusion from his nemesis. Len winked. The kid was being particularly thick today.

“Yeah, well, you know me. Always liked taking things…slow.” Flash had stopped walking towards him. “Do you wanna step outside, maybe?” He cocked his head towards the door, as if he expected Len to go along with it. Len took the kid in, hands in his pockets, light jacket. Didn’t look like he had flashed here, but would Len even be able to tell?

“C’mon, Barry. It’s my turn to treat you. I promised I’d get you something, last time,” Len lied. And what could Allen do now, except agree to stay. No one, not even the Flash, could withstand the power of social pressure. Even so, he saw a challenge rise up in Flash. Fortunately, it died before Len had to give serious thought to another lie. Good. Outside didn’t sound promising. It wasn’t that Len was scared of the kid, but why spoil a good mood with the Flash’s anger. It took Flash another thirty-six seconds of looking torn, but he finally pulled the chair across from Len and sat down.

“Cap, triple shot,” Flash said. “Please.” He waved a hand in Len’s direction. Did Allen really need all that caffeine? Wouldn’t have expected the kid to run on fumes, nor to get a drink that wasn’t filled with sugar. But he may as well appease the kid, he figured, walking up to the counter. The barista—Kelly, her nametag said—passed him the drink eighty-two seconds later. He stared at it. Len didn’t deviate much from his standard order, but did cappuccinos usually come with whipped cream? He definitely hadn’t asked for it, but assumed that the answer to the whipped cream was hidden in the way Kelly was looking at the kid. _Cute._

The kid shot him a look when he handed him the drink, like he half-expected Len to have poisoned it via whipped cream. Which would have been…creative, but not at all what Len was going for. His game wouldn’t be half as interesting if the Flash was dead.

Len shrugged, neither confirming nor denying that it had been him. It could only help him if the barista’s flirting was interpreted as Len’s peacemaking. They both sipped at their drinks for a moment. When that passed, he started to speak, but the kid beat him to the punch.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. His dark eyes were dangerous and, shit, maybe Len shouldn’t have given him the caffeine boost. Len threw up a hand in defense.

“Getting a drink,” Len said, pointing to his coffee. He hadn’t been in Jitters long when Barry showed up, actually. “Same as you.”

The expression on Flash’s face looked incredulous. Could he not believe that Captain Cold would get a drink so openly? Len knew Jitters wasn’t exactly Saints and Sinners, but c’mon. He pressed on, “What are you doing _here_ , Barry?” Flash bristled at the (second) use of his name. “You frequent a different shop, last time I checked.”

Flash looked like he wanted to say something about Len knowing that, but instead he just sighed. “I should go. I don’t have the time to play nice with you, Snart. Not today.”

“I think you have more than enough time, Allen. Why so cold? Still angry about our last adventure?” Maybe Len was playing with fire, and maybe that was more Mick’s wheelhouse, but he had _thought_ that the Flash would have been much less civil with him. Len didn’t regret freeing the metahumans. And why should he? Illegal detainment and transport wasn’t as bad as murder, sure, but it hadn’t exactly been stellar of the Flash’s little team.

“Yes,” the other man said. But he still hadn’t moved to get up. “I’m angry. But my life doesn’t revolve around you, Snart. If it did, I would’ve taken you in, and I wouldn’t have cared _what_ you did with my identity. There was…” Something was there, in the Flash’s eyes. “I had bigger problems.”

“I saw,” Len said. “The whole city saw. I honestly can’t believe you’re not dead.” He kept his voice flat. Any doubt he had that the kid didn’t know exactly what the cost could’ve been was wiped away by the way his face fell, eyes cast towards the floor. The mere mention of death, and Flash’s reaction to it, told Len more than he needed to know. “But that’s not it, is it?”

“Why do you care?” His gaze bore into Len, searching for something. Sympathy? Pity?

“I _don’t_ care,” Len said. “You lead with your face, is all. Can’t help being curious.”

Flash’s face went stony, not that Len had expected any differently when he’d admitted that the Flash’s emotional well-being meant little to him. Though maybe the lack of attachment was why he started to speak. “It’s…a long story,” he said. “And I need to get back to…” He trailed off.

“Why haven’t you left, then?” It was simple. He could see the kid take in the accusation, and he really _did_ lead with his face, didn’t he? There was something, then. An admittance. Tension left the Flash’s shoulders, though Len was sure it was unintentional.

“The hole over Central City was my fault. There was this…man. The Reverse-Flash.” Len would bet diamonds that the name was courtesy of Cisco. “He—Look, it _is_ complicated. It’s a long story, and I really _don’t_ want to go into it with…you.” Len noted the distaste in the way Barry said that. Right back atcha, Scarlet. “But _so_ many people died because of him. And one of my friends—to stop him, he…”

“Who was it?”

“What?” Flash asked, and when Len didn’t repeat himself, “Eddie. Eddie Thawne.”  
  
“The detective.”

The kid frowned, before he remembered. “He took you in. You and Rory.”

“That’s right.” Silence settled between them, ticking on. Len had never been good at consoling people, and the kid wouldn’t want whatever comfort Len could offer him. But a life was a life. “My condolences.”

The Flash scowled, the energy he was giving off changing on a dime. “You don’t have to pretend to care, Cold. I’m sure you’re glad that there’s one less cop trying to bring you in.” The pragmatic side of Len could admit that it wasn’t a disadvantage, and he didn’t particularly know the dead man. But the kid was making a bunch of assumptions. Len didn’t like being a target—least of all when it was wholly undeserved. Grief was no excuse for lashing out at people, enemy or otherwise.

“I admit that I don’t care about Detective Thawne personally, but I’m only human, Scarlet. Contrary to naming convention, I’m not so frozen that it’s impossible for me to sympathize when someone’s grieving.” He stood. Maybe he was being dramatic, but, for once, he had pissed the Flash off without any real cause. Half of him wanted to stay, actually rile the Flash up. Fight him, if the situation called for it. But he played it cool, pulling his jacket tight around him. “Be seeing you, Allen.”

And then he walked out the door.

xxx

“Barry?” Barry nearly groaned at being awoken, almost let the last clutches of sleep succeed in their attempts to tug Barry back under. The voice could wait another five, ten, twenty minutes, right? He’d actually been _getting_ sleep for once this week, the dreams had stayed away. But his mind kept its slow march towards full awareness, and the voice rang again, “Barr?”

Maybe it was Joe? No, the voice was definitely a woman. Iris, maybe? He felt hazy and disconnected from himself, which was better—so much better—than actually _being_ himself. Where had he fallen asleep? S.T.A.R. Labs? He’d spent enough nights there, lately. He made a garbled noise, halfway between a snore and a groan, sure he was convincing whoever was intruding that he was still asleep.

“Barr,” the voice said again, firm. “I’ve known you for years. You are _not_ asleep right now. Wake _up_.” The blanket he’d thrown across himself when he’d taken his impromptu stroll to the land of sleep was ripped away, and, alright, that was definitely Iris.

He made a grab for the stolen blanket and whined, playing into their routine. It had started when he came to live with the Wests, since Barry was notoriously bad about waking up for school and Iris was a terror to behold even at eleven. Barry cracked his eyes open, blinking wearily up at her, “What do you want?” He knew he was probably pouting, couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“I—” She sighed. “I told you I was coming over, Barr. I said to meet me at Dad’s house around four?” Crap, had that been today? “When you didn’t show, I…thought that maybe you might be here.” Of course she knew. She always knew, and Barry was willing to bet that Joe had clued her into Barry’s newly forming sleep habits. Iris was still wary to come around the Labs. Must be important, if she’d chased him here. But she’d danced around an answer he’d asked her what she wanted to talk about.

“Go splash some water on your face, Barr. I can wait for you to freshen up.” There was a hint of teasing in her voice, knowing that Barry wasn’t exactly bright and bushy when he first awoke. He almost told her that he’d been less than bright _most_ of the time lately. Freshening up wouldn’t help that. But why not try, even if he was faking it for her sake?

They walked through the Cortex, Iris taking a seat at one of the monitors. Nothing was on, right now. Caitlin was out with Ronnie and Cisco was still at Iron Heights with Joe. It was almost strange, Barry thought, how Iron Heights had become an even bigger part of Barry’s routine.

Iron Heights was a hot topic, lately. The public, in the wake of the singularity, had demanded action to stop (and detain) bad—evil, some commentators loved to mention—metahumans. The East Wing was being refurbished, with the help of S.T.A.R. Labs, into a more humane version of the Pipeline. It had been pitched to the CCPD like a novelty—as if they’d never illegally detained metahumans in the first place. They’d all agreed to keep that secret, figured that if it ever _did_ come out that Central City’s finest would be more than appeased that they weren’t doing it anymore. Joe and Barry could feign ignorance, if it came to that.

Barry had been counting on the regularity of everyone’s schedules, when he’d come to the Labs. Silence, no people around to disturb. But fate wasn’t on his side today, apparently. He sighed, making his way past the Cortex and to the bathroom. The mirror on the wall told him what he already knew. He looked like hell, and the conversation with Cold hadn’t helped that.

And why had Cold up and left? The guy was overdramatic and flashy, sure, but what had Barry done? Nothing, other than tell Cold in no uncertain terms that he didn’t buy the sympathy act. Leonard Snart didn’t care that Eddie had died. He was probably laughing about their conversation right now. Barry frowned at his reflection. No going back to that Jitters anymore. The next time he saw Cold, it’d be if and when he had to fight him.

He checked his phone as he made his way back to the Cortex. Three missed calls from Iris, and a text that was just a bunch of question marks from her, too. Nobody else had bothered him. If he hadn’t forgotten that he was supposed to meet Iris, had cancelled on her instead, he could’ve slept through the night in the Labs.

“I want to have a funeral for Eddie,” Iris said as he entered the room, throwing Barry off. It was sudden. Almost too sudden. “I know that we haven’t talked about it, but we haven’t talked about _anything_.” Was that anger in her voice? Barry knew that tone. But she pressed on. “And since the CCPD thinks he’s in _Brazil_ right now, it doesn’t have to be everyone. Just…something for us. In honor of him. Barry, he wouldn’t want…this.” She looked around at the empty Cortex, at Barry. “You know that.”

Barry had taken a seat while she’d spoken, thinking on it. But what else was knew? He’d been thinking of Eddie all day, every day for the past month. But Iris couldn’t know what Eddie would have wanted. “Iris, I—” he started to say, already regretting picking that particular fight, but he stopped. They had company.

Caitlin, Cisco, and Joe were walking into the Cortex, quieter than he’d ever seen them. The way they looked at Barry cautiously, and then to Iris, waiting, was…telling. “Iris,” he asked, barely keeping his voice level. “What is this?” He wasn’t angry with her. But he didn’t have the patience to drag this out. And having all four of them in the same room as him, all seeming to be on the same side, was putting him on edge. Was Iris staging an intervention? Had Barry changed _so_ drastically since Eddie’s death that his friends were too scared to talk to him alone? He tried to hush the dark, angry part of his mind.

“Heeeey, Iris. Barry,” Cisco said, trying to break the ice. Ice Barry hadn’t even noticed until now. And, shit, he had been right. None of them wanted to talk with him alone. When had that happened? Had it been after Wells’ betrayal? After Eddie? His mind stormed, lightning crackling in his veins. He wanted to run.

“We’ve been talking,” Iris said.

“Without you,” Cisco added, unhelpfully.

Barry started to say something, but Iris cut him off. “Save it, Barr. You wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it.” Which wasn’t untrue. But Barry’s mouth still hung open, just a little. How deep did the conspiracy go? Could it be considered a conspiracy if it was just a joke that Barry wasn’t in on? He felt the lightning burning at the tips of his fingers, through his chest.

“You haven’t been the same since you closed the singularity, Barry. At first, I thought something had happened in there—something you weren’t ready to talk about. But then you weren’t talking about anything. You weren’t talking to _me_. Again.” Iris shook her head. “And you don’t get to push me away. You don’t get to act like you can shoulder this on your own. That’s not fair to me, to any of us.”

Cisco jumped in. “We’re not saying you aren’t allowed your space to grieve, man. But you’re shutting us out, and I…Barry. I get it, you know? _You’ve_ got the powers, and Wells was out to ruin _your_ life. But just because he was aiming for you doesn’t mean that no one else was affected, that no one else was…betrayed.”

“Cisco’s right. You are, and we were, and you don’t. You just _don’t_. Eddie’s dead.” Iris walked towards him, moving to lift his face so that he _had_ to look at her. “Eddie’s gone, and I loved him, Barr. I loved him so much. I know you know that. And the last few weeks have been the _longest_ of my life, and you…you haven’t been here. And I needed you. I needed my best friend.”

“You know what? These last few months have _sucked_ , actually. And I forgive you. But if you can’t forgive yourself, then what’s the point? If you keep shutting us out, if you keep letting things get worse? That’s how Wells _wins_ , Barry. That’s exactly what he wanted. And how he _loses_? How we make sure that he can’t take anything _else_ from us? We come together. We shoulder all of this crap with each other, for each other. Because otherwise, we’re dead in the water.”

The room was quiet.

“It _is_ proven that interaction with other people helps in the grieving process,” Caitlin said into the silence, going for humor and falling short.

Time clicked on, again. Slowed down. The lightning disappeared.

“I wasn’t…trying to push you away,” Barry said, pushing the words out.

But that wasn’t the point, was it?

He pulled Iris into a hug. She was right. This wasn’t the way. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m so sorry.” The moment felt like it could break, like he might lose the realization dawning on him at any moment. Joe, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, came into the hug. Holding them both even tighter, looking proud and misty-eyed. Barry hadn’t fallen to pieces. Not until right then. He was sobbing, gross hiccups into Iris’ hair and Joe’s chest.

“I-I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t want any of you to have to do this without me. I—You’re right. You’re right.” There was so much more to be said, so much to mend. But that was the most important part, that he—they—couldn’t do it alone. He broke away from the hug, moving to Caitlin and Cisco.

He flashed into a hug, nearly toppling them over. They were his family, too. Different, but so, so important to him. And Reverse-Flash had almost gotten ahold of this. Had gotten inside his head, nearly made him think to deny this. He wouldn’t rule Barry’s life anymore. Even if nothing would suddenly get better. Eddie was still gone. But he didn’t have to lose everyone else. He _wouldn’t_ lose anyone else, not to this.

Barry wiped at his nose with his sleeve, feeling caught between the two parts of himself, the one oddly childlike and the other knowing he could never be a child again. The biggest mystery in his life, what he’d searched for since he was a kid, was solved. And nothing was the same. It wouldn’t be, ever again, but here he was. And he had this. And that was…okay.

“Together,” he said. And inside him, everything shifted. Just slightly. Just enough to make room for hope.

xxx

When the Flash showed up in his Jitters, _again_ , Len was tempted to ice him. But where was the fun in that? Len’d had a chance to cool down, it had been a week. Maybe Flash was asking for his help again, and even though Len hoped the kid would’ve learned his lesson, he’d bite.

He couldn’t help noticing that the kid looked more like himself, jittery and nervous, worrying his lip between his teeth and holding a cup of joe between his hands. Len made him wait, chatting up Kelly. He wondered how long Flash had been sitting at the table, waiting for Len to show up. He smiled bitterly at that, and the fake one he flashed Kelly when she handed him his coffee seemed to make her almost uncomfortable, like she knew it wasn’t for her.

“Didn’t expect to see you here again, Barry,” Len said, taking his seat.

Flash huffed out a laugh, “I didn’t really expect to be here, but I, well, I mean…” His voice trailed off, as he tensed up again, and Len knew the last time he’d seen that body language. The Flash had a particular way of moving, always tensing before he was about to run. Len smirked, taking a long sip of his drink. He could wait.

“So, I wasn’t in a great place the last time I saw you, and I may have taken it out on you, and you’re not exactly my favorite person to be around, but you didn’t deserve me being an ass just because you’re an easy target, or…I just mean, you’re,” Flash’s voice dropped lower, “a criminal, but you were right. You’re still just…a guy. And, actually, this conversation is already pretty surreal, so just. I’m sorry, for making assumptions, but in my defense you don’t exactly give off the friendliest vibes. Not that we’re friends.”

Len held up a hand to stop the Flash’s rambling, before the kid had a chance to run over his apology.

“You know, Flash, I have to give you credit. It’s refreshing when I don’t have to tell someone that they’re an idiot,” Len said, holding the Flash’s stare until the other looked away.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to rub it in,” he mumbled at the ground.

“Am I?” he asked, pointedly. “See, here’s the rub, Barry. I don’t accept.” The Flash’s eyes jumped back up to his, looking almost hurt. Len rose an eyebrow. “Why should I?”

The kid started sputtering, “I—What do you mean? It’s what people _do_.”

Len snorted, “I’m people now, Allen? And here I thought I was just a _criminal_.”

The kid’s eyebrows knitted together. “That was…Snart, I was just…saying that. And, it’s true. Unless you’ve turned over a new leaf.” There was something in Allen’s voice, but Len filed it away for when he had more data. It was so easy to push Flash’s buttons. A minor offense, and he was before Captain Cold asking for forgiveness? Please. Too righteous for his own good. What was the harm in seeing what he could get out of this?

“You know,” he started, drawing out the words. Acting as if he was considering what he was about to say. Flash looked dubious, like he expected Cold to slide him another napkin. “I might consider accepting if you told me the rest of your sob story.”

He thought the kid would get angry, but Flash just sighed. He scrubbed at his eyes, stretching in his seat, ran a hand through his hair. Was he actually making a show of settling in? Story couldn’t be all that complicated.

When Flash started telling him, it was like a pipe that had been frozen had burst. Water—words—everywhere. It was a long story. And it was absolutely as complicated as Flash had implied—Len could admit when he was wrong. He kept his face in check.

“… And so, tomorrow, we’re doing this thing for Eddie. Just us, for now. As far as the CCPD knows, he had a family emergency. Gone from Central City indefinitely.” Len winced internally. Family emergency was a little too close to the truth, for his tastes. “I, uh, think. I haven’t been keeping up. They’re already looking to hire a new partner for Joe, though. I still think Singh’s expecting him to waltz through the door again, so there’s really been no luck on that front.”

“Huh,” Len said. Because what could you say to that? Time travel, singularities above Central City, the Flash’s entire damn existence. All because one bastard hated the kid. Len felt the ice in his veins go hot. “You really weren’t exaggerating, were you Scarlet?”

“No,” Allen said, simply. “So, Snart, get what you wanted?” He looked at Len expectantly.

“Well, Barry, I think—” He cut himself off when he saw the kid’s face go panicked. Len hadn’t said anything to cause that look. But Flash’s eyes were looking past him, over his shoulder, to the door. Len stretched around in his seat, and, damn, did Lisa have incredible timing.

Flash got up, almost too fast. How this kid kept a secret identity, Len would never know. Allen mumbled a hasty goodbye, and he was out the door, leaving a curious Lisa in his wake. A curious Lisa that Len would have to deal with now. Damn it.

“Now, Lenny, clandestine meetings in public places? Never knew you to be that sloppy,” his sister quipped, smiling with faux-sweetness. “And, call me crazy, but I _thought_ we had a deal. You only get to case _my_ boyfriends if I can check out _yours_.”

Len brought a hand up to massage his temple, sighing. “Not a date, brat.”

“Really? _Well_ , I don’t remember anyone quite so…fresh-faced among the mobs. And no one with any sense would run out of a _coffee shop_ at the sight of me. So, either you’re hiding something, or he doesn’t have a brain in that pretty head of his.” Sometimes, Len wasn’t sure whether crap detection was a family skill or if Lisa was simply too observant for her own damn good. Not that Len could give her any shit for that. It was a useful skill to have. Usually.

He weighed the pros and cons of telling her the truth. Decided to honor the parts of the truce that he hadn’t broken yet. “He’s CSI, Sis. Must’ve recognized you and decided he’d rather not make a scene.”

“A date with a cop, Len? Now why does that sound like a lie?”

“It _wasn’t_ a date,” Len said, gritting out the words. “But he _is_ an idiot. Recognized me, thought he could bag me, but forgot that the CCPD has nothing on me.” For now, he added in his head.

She made a noise of affirmation, even if she still didn’t look convinced. Len decided to steer the conversation in a different direction. “You have anything classy in black?” The look Lisa gave him was as patronizing as she could muster. “Well, pick something out. We’re going to a funeral tomorrow. All of us.”

Lisa cocked her head to the side, but didn’t question it. Yet. “We’ll have to find Mick a suit.”

“He has one. Old, but it’ll do the job,” Len said. “He’s staying at the safehouse on Waid.” He stared her down, glaring.

“I’ll get him,” she said, finally. “Are you going to tell me what our angle is here, Len?”

“Not likely, Lise.”

xxx

His fingers went to his tie for what felt like the thirtieth time in as many minutes. The tie was straight; Barry knew he looked _fine_. Besides, how he looked wasn’t what was important here. Today was about Eddie. The late winter air was cool, but only just, clinging to the idea of winter, but preparing for the inevitability of spring. It was like the Earth itself wasn’t ready to move on, to renew, to begin again. But it would.

The last time that they’d all been together, like this, had been Ronnie and Caitlin’s wedding. The events that had followed, though…well, Barry preferred to think of a happier moment, of a moment of reprieve before everything had gone to hell. Though, had there ever been a time between all of them when things _weren’t_ going to hell? This was their life now, like it or not. The thing they could hope for—one of the only things they could maybe try to actively prevent—was that this would be the last funeral held for someone gone too soon.

They hadn’t had anywhere to give Eddie a proper funeral—and had agreed that they would have a separate funeral once they found a way to explain his death, the lack of a body. Explaining Wells’ death had been one thing, explaining Eddie’s would be another entirely. Iris had mentioned that Eddie had lived his life largely alone, his parents having died years before, no brothers or sisters. Grandparents had died before he was born, and his parents didn’t keep in touch with their brothers and sisters. Iris had empathized with that.

Barry was grateful that Eddie’d had them. He had been a man that Barry was humbled and proud to call a brother of sorts. The man was so genuinely impossible to dislike. And all of the good memories…those were the ones that Barry cherished. Barry’s mouth formed a half-smile at that.

Professor Stein had agreed to say a few words, for a sense of ceremony. Barry tried to listen, truly, but he only heard some of what was being said, distracted by the figures approaching in black. His stomach dropped when he realized that he recognized the faces. Leonard Snart. Lisa Snart. Mick Rory. Joe’s face went grave as he followed Barry’s gaze, though he kept cool, if only for his daughter’s sake. Iris was ignoring them—or hadn’t noticed, though Barry thought her calm expression looked more strained than it had been before.

The Rogues stopped, close enough that they could hear, but far enough away that they were decidedly outside of the team’s space. Barry figured, since they weren’t doing anything technically wrong, he could do his best to ignore them, listening to Martin instead

“There’s a Jewish honorific for the dead that I’d like to say for Eddie, if I may, Ms. West?” Iris’ lips quirked upwards, the tiniest bit, as she nodded at Martin. “Translated from the Hebrew, of course.” His eyes closed, he breathed in. Barry wasn’t sure if it was a prayer or if Martin was just being…reverent, but Barry closed his eyes, too. “May his memory be a blessing.” They stood there, together, simply breathing in his presence—or, something that felt like what Barry imagined a sense of presence might feel like.

When he opened his eyes, he found the Rogues looking…solemn. Any worry that Snart was here to cause trouble was drained out of him. While Barry still wasn’t sure _why_ Snart had chosen to attend the service—or, for that matter, how long he’d tailed Barry to find out where it was being held—he found that he wasn’t mad. He couldn’t be mad. Wasn’t Snart just…proving that he’d been sincere when he’d offered his sympathies? And if that realization made Barry feel like a jerk, he suppressed it.

After Martin had finished his speech and blessings, and after Iris and Joe had said some of their own words for Eddie, they moved to go back into the Labs. To just…be together. But that couldn’t just _happen_ , could it? Joe pulled him aside as they’d started moving, speaking soft and harsh, “Barry, what the _hell_ is Leonard Snart doing here? And his sister and _Mick Rory_?”

“I don’t know,” Barry said, holding up his hands in defense. “Okay, so I _may_ have mentioned that we were having something for Eddie today, but I didn’t expect Cold to _show up_. And they didn’t _do_ anything.” They were still standing, actually, quietly observing Joe and Barry’s conversation, at enough of a distance that Barry wasn’t super worried that they could hear anything. But, even so…

Joe sighed, “When and _why_ were you talking to Captain Cold? I thought I told you, Barry. No more walks on the dark side. Ringing any bells?”

Barry crossed his arms, knowing he was probably being irrational, but unable to stop himself. “It’s not like I’m trying to run into him. It just kinda happens.” Okay, so it had happened twice, and the second time had been nowhere near an accident, but it was the principle of the thing. This wasn’t the time or the place for this argument—and why were they even _arguing_. It’s not like Snart was going to start hanging around all the time, or…whatever Joe was freaking out about. Barry just, he’d been a jerk and wanted to apologize. Where was the harm in that? It wasn’t Barry’s fault that Cold had shown up.

“Joe, I—” Barry started. But he stopped when he heard Cisco cry out, dropping to the ground. He’d been hanging back, with Iris, waiting for Barry and Joe. Barry was about to flash over to him, and then he felt it, too. It was like the lightning again, or the cold pressure he felt when he’d gone into the singularity, like when he’d gone back to save his mom. It smelled sharp and stale.

Late, too late, he saw Cold’s hand go to his waist—and had Cold really brought his gun to a _funeral_ —but he was in too much pain to do anything other than groan, reaching his hand out. Cold seemed to understand, not that his hand left his waist.

And, then, it was over. The pain gone and replaced by…a calm. He caught up to the present. A body, someone said. A _body_? Iris screamed, a name. Barry’s mind was too loud, still really. But he knew. He _knew_.

“Allen,” Cold said beside him, helping him to his feet, and when had Cold gotten that close to him. “What the _hell_.”

Thoughts were running through his mind fast— _too_ fast. Cisco was quicker than him to say it aloud. He heard the man’s soft “Oh my God.”

Iris was beside the body, kneeling, shaking him gently. But he was there, breathing. _Eddie_ was breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!
> 
> I was talking to one of my best friends last week, about the inevitability of me writing fic for this show. The next day, I told her the story of the long, plotty fic that I'd thought up in the middle of class. Thus, this.
> 
> If you feel the need to scream at me, you can find me over at http://speculativefrictions.tumblr.com!


	2. The Miraculous Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As a figure from Lisa's past makes her return, Len comes up with a plan to distract the Flash. Meanwhile, Barry and the S.T.A.R. Labs team investigate a string of mysterious break-ins across Central City.

“I have to hand it to you, Len. My day’s been _much_ more interesting than I’d thought it was going to be. I mean, when I woke up this morning I figured we’d go to a funeral for some dead cop, you’d do _whatever_ it was you wanted to do, and then we’d get a drink. But _instead_ , I got to see a goddamn resurrection.” Lisa’s voice was pitchy, growing higher as she lost her cool, but distant. Len couldn’t focus on her, though she was sitting across from him. Her legs were hiked up over the arm of the well-worn chair sitting in the “living room” of their homiest safe house. They’d fallen back after Thawne’s sudden appearance, leaving the Flash and his crew to deal with… _that_. Len didn’t often find himself floored, unable to fire off snark of innuendo, but it was one thing to know that the Flash could travel in time and another thing _entirely_ to see a formerly dead body appear from nowhere.

“Cold,” Mick said from where he was leaned against the wall. He was flicking a lighter on and off, the light dancing on his face. It made his scowl a dark slash against the pallor of his cheeks. “Talk. What the fuck was that?” Words had never been Mick’s strong suit. Trouble was, Len didn’t have an answer for him. He had guesses, informed from Allen and Ramon’s whispered panic, but nothing strictly concrete. The good detective’s return was a puzzle. The corners of Len’s mouth slid up his face as he considered their options. “Cold!”

“Chill out, Mick. I’m thinking. We need a plan before we make our next move.” Len glared at Mick.

Lisa’s eyes flickered from Mick to Len, her lips pressed in a tight line. She dangled an expensive shoe from her toe, the other having fallen to the floor. “You’re saying we _have_ a next move?”

“There’s always a next move,” Len said, tearing his gaze away from Mick to smile at Lisa. “Say, Sis, isn’t _Sam_ in town?”

A dark blush colored Lisa’s cheeks. “What does that have to do wi—” She stopped, midsentence, as a sickly sweet smile bloomed on her face to match Len’s. They played their game like this. Plans came and went. Players, important ones, were the big score, and Sam Scudder was a player of unusual use. “Bet the Flash could use a distraction, huh?”

“That he could, Lise. The question becomes whether Sam will go for it. I assume I can count on you for that?” His smile fell to a smirk. He ran a hand over his discarded gun, set beside him. The chill ran up his arm and through his body.

Lisa kicked off her shoe, finally, and slipped back into the chair, facing him. The light filtering between the shades caught her eyes, bringing out the lighter browns and giving them a dangerous glow. “Just tell me what you need, Lenny.”

Mick looked between the two of them, the snap of his lighter clicking shut. The color had returned to his face, but confusion darkened it. Conversations between Len and Lisa tended to do that. “Who?” he asked, gruffly.

And Len laughed.

xxx

Barry’s felt like he could hear the electricity running through the lights—a long, low screech that just made his headache worse. It was _still_ pounding against his skull, and a quick look to Cisco told him that his friend was feeling the same. No one was bothering to keep their voices down, the situation elevating their fears and their volume exponentially. Thank God the Rogues had left. Barry didn’t think his head would be able to take the added stress. It could barely handle Joe right now.

Eddie had been brought to the Cortex so that Caitlin could check him out. Eddie was alive. Everything about Eddie seemed normal. Barry’d pinched himself at super speed, just to confirm that, yes, this was happening. The detective had still been out—with no signs of a concussion—when Joe had dragged him into the hallway. Cisco and Stein had followed, Ronnie staying behind with his wife.

And then, of course, everyone had flipped their collective shit.

He was glad they’d taken it out of the Cortex, at least. Iris didn’t need to hear this. Though, frankly, Barry wasn’t sure that she _couldn’t_ hear them. Joe was _so loud_. Barry had sat through enough of Joe’s lectures to wait for him to simmer down, let the steam run. It took a while, this time, before Joe finished with a succinct “How?”

Cisco was the first to speak, running his hand through his hair as he leaned, stiff, against the wall. “I have no clue, Joe. Temporal anomaly? We don’t know what happened when Barry closed the singularity. And time is…weird. It’s not…” The man trailed off. Cisco always looked a bit lost when he didn’t immediately find a solution, eyes unfocused. Barry figured that before the particle accelerator blew, the look hadn’t crossed his face all that much.

“Detective West,” Martin began, picking up where Cisco had left off. “I think what Mr. Ramon is trying to say is that there’s no telling what changes to the timeline may have occurred when Mr. Allen saved the city. It’s theorized that the beat of a butterfly’s wings could change the course of history. Any single action that Mr. Allen took that day might have landed us in our current situation. But until Detective Thawne wakes up, we’re up the river without a paddle—without a boat, even. And even when he _does_ awaken, it’s doubtful he’ll be able to tell us how he found his way back.”

Barry massaged his temples with his hands, taking shallow breaths through his nose. “Joe,” he said, eyes closed to focus, “Eddie’s back. That’s the important thing, right?” When he opened his eyes, Joe was staring at him. It was the look that crossed Joe’s face when Barry admitted to forgetting to process evidence, when Joe caught him in an obvious lie. He squashed the feeling down. No. Couldn’t they be happy for five minutes? Couldn’t they make sure Eddie was okay first before inventing new ways to sabotage their happiness?

“I’m grateful for this, Barry. Of course I am. But I’m not worried about Eddie. I’m worried about what—who—he might have brought back _with him_.” And that was— _oh_. Wells. Reverse-Flash. Of course, Barry felt stupid, then anxious. Joe must’ve seen the look go across his face because he hasted to add, softer, “I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be happy to have him back, Barr. But…” But it was about the cost. No one wanted Wells back—the fake Wells. Joe was right.

Martin spoke up, a thoughtful expression on his face. “It’s worth noting that it took Detective Thawne some time to rejoin the land of the living. Is it too much to hope that his descendant might have been thrown back to his own time?” It sounded reasonable when he said it. “I hasten to reiterate that there’s still much we don’t know.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Joe said. He looked back to Barry. Joe’s real thoughts could be hard to figure out, even in his happier moments, but concern was the one thing that showed plain on his face. It was ever-present when he looked to Barry or Iris. “What about Barry and Cisco? Do we have any clue why they would’ve gone down out there?”

“Actually, I might have an explanation for that…” Cisco was frowning, voice wavering with the tremor of confession. “I…It didn’t seem important, at the time, or I would have told you all. And I wanted to be _sure_ that Wells was right before I said anything.” He took a deep breath. “I talked to Wells, when we had him trapped. I wanted to know _why_ , to ask him about the dreams I’d been having, and I…I was affected by the particle accelerator explosion. I-I don’t know what else I can do, but I see things, from other timelines. Barry’s gone through time, so maybe that’s…”

Barry gripped Cisco’s shoulder tight, until his friend looked up at him. “Hey, it’s okay, alright? We’re not mad.” He smiled, so that Cisco would have no doubt. Barry didn’t have any room to talk about secret keeping. They shared a look, a nod, and Barry pulled him into a hug. Neither of them had heard Caitlin approach.

“You _what_?” Her eyes were wide, voice soft. How long had she been standing there? She’d been in the process of stripping off one of her gloves, lab coat over the dress she’d worn for the funeral. “You—Cisco, you can’t keep things like that a secret. I could’ve keeping watch on you; we could’ve been _helping_ you. We _just_ finished telling Barry he wasn’t allowed to shut us out, and now you too?

“Cait, I wasn’t shutting you out. I just…needed some time to process. I didn’t think you’d understand,” Cisco reached towards her, one arm still on Barry’s shoulder.

“If I found out that I was affected by the particle accelerator, I would tell you two,” Caitlin said crisply, allowing herself to be pulled into the hug. Her expression thawed as she hugged back.

Over her shoulder, Barry smiled at Joe. If Wells was back, they’d take him down. They knew his tricks. “We’ll figure it out, Joe,” he said, once he’d pulled away.

“I hope you’re right, Barry.” Joe huffed out a laugh. “Should’ve known it was too quiet around here to last very long.” Stein grimaced, and Caitlin smiled, strained.

“Eddie’s awake,” Caitlin said suddenly. That had probably been why she’d been coming out here. Joe moved around them and back into the Cortex, eager to see his partner. Caitlin turned to follow him, Barry, Cisco, and Martin behind.

“How is he? I mean, you don’t sound too worried, so that’s good? He’s good?” Barry asked, catching up to Caitlin.

“He’s…fine. It really is remarkable. There’s no sign of the bullet wound, no indication that his body has been under any kind of abnormal stress,” she said, hesitant. Caitlin was avoiding something, but she pressed on. “There’s…something else. But I think Iris wants to tell you. Just…try not to ask him too many questions right now.” She smiled, then, like she was in on a joke that Barry wasn’t.

She, Cisco, and Martin moved off to the side to stand with Ronnie, presumably to give Barry a moment with Eddie, Joe, and Iris. When Barry caught sight of Eddie—and boy was an awake, smiling Eddie something that Barry had missed—he reflexively mirrored the man’s look. “Barry!” Eddie called, all joy. “Tell Iris that I’m fine. Please? C’mon man, knock some sense into her. Look at me! I’m super fine.” Joe stood behind Eddie, Iris sitting close to his bedside.

“Eddie,” Iris said, shooting Barry a frown that meant Eddie was not nearly as fine as he seemed to believe. “Caitlin just wants to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. I can sympathize.” She ran a hand through his hair, looking down at him with tender concern. And Barry wasn’t even jealous. He’d had more than a month of Eddie being gone. The jealousy had been hard to feed when Eddie had been alive—especially after his embarrassment over his state when whammied, and even harder when they'd had to invent lightning psychosis to justify his actions after he’d traveled in time the first time. In his death, it had dissipated completely. What kind of an ass would go after Iris while she was grieving? It hadn’t even crossed his mind. Looking at them now, Barry was…content. When had that happened?

“I’m not going to do anything stupid, Iris!” Eddie laughed. “Unless kissing you is stupid? Because I would gladly be super stupid as long as I could kiss you, Iris.” He giggled—and _oh_ , alright, Eddie was on painkillers. Right. They’d hooked him up to an IV just in case he woke up and his body decided to remember that he’d been unceremoniously dropped onto the ground. Well, that was…interesting, for sure. Iris was a trooper, kissing him on his forehead, which just made him giggle more.

“He doesn’t remember you going back in time, Barr,” Iris said quietly, standing and walking towards Barry.

“Have you told him?” Barry asked. If Eddie didn’t remember that, that meant…he didn’t remember why Wells wasn’t with them anymore. He didn’t remember shooting himself. What did that _mean_? Or did it mean anything? Barry was _really_ starting to hate time travel.

“He’s been loopy since he woke up. But…I’m going to. When the meds clear his system. He deserves to know, and…I’m not going to lie to him. He already asked why I was crying when he woke up.” She laughed, disbelieving, before she smiled softly.  “I can’t believe this is happening. I was just starting to get used to him not being here, and now…” Tears were on their way. Barry pulled her into a hug, and she gripped him back just as tightly. She was right. Things had changed, again. This time for the better. Even as concerned as Joe was, the energy in the room was so much different than it had been earlier today. Still a bit tense, but not nearly as off. It felt great. Kinetic. It was maybe too much to hope that Eddie’s resurrection would fix everything that had been marred over the last month, but…

“If you want me to be there, when you tell him, I will be, Iris. Promise,” he said as he pulled out of the hug. Iris blinked the last tears from her eyes. Barry felt the urge to run a thumb across her cheek, wipe her tears away. But that wasn't his job. He could be the best friend. He could. He was.

“Thanks, Barry.” She let out a sigh. “It’s a good thing things have been slow lately. Otherwise, I’d never convince him to stay put.”

Barry laughed. “If you and Joe keep talking about things being slow, you're gonna jinx it. Let's just enjoy it while it lasts.”

xxx

It had been three hours, fifty-two minutes, and seven seconds since Len had sent his sister off to find Sam Scudder. Len wasn’t impatient, by nature, but Lisa had promised to be back before dark with her former lover. The former lover that Len hadn’t met because—by Lisa’s logic—Len had only specified that he be able to case her _boy_ friends. Never a peep about girlfriends. A loophole to end all loopholes, but a loophole nonetheless.

In Len’s defense, he hadn’t thought anything of the wording. Lisa hadn’t dated any women when she’d been in high school, hadn’t let slip that she was interested in girls until after she’d been dating Sam. Sam was a relatively recent girlfriend, an old best friend before that. They'd reconnected when Sam had been here for work. And if Len remembered correctly—and he did—the only reason that Lisa and Sam had broken up had been because Sam had wanted to get away from Central. Why, Lisa hadn’t been forthcoming with. As it wasn’t technically any of Len’s business and the breakup had been amicable, Len had left it alone.

He knew next to fuck all about the woman. Deadbeat father, mother who had left when Sam had been young to take care of her aging parents in the Philippines. She and Lisa had bonded over some of that; Lisa’s mother had stuck around longer than Len’s had, sure, but she wasn’t vying for any Mother of the Year awards. Hadn’t tried the mothering shtick since they were…much younger. Between absent mothers and an abusive father, Len and Lisa had learned to stick together. It was part of the reason they vetted each other’s choice of partner—Len’s protectiveness had rubbed off on his sister.

Len was interested not in Lisa’s history with Sam, but in the woman’s burgeoning criminal career. It wouldn’t do to _just_ break into S.T.A.R. Labs. Time travel, extra dimensions? Len was good, but he wasn’t that good. What he _could_ do, with an expert’s touch, was manufacture the perfect, natural situation to encounter the Flash, to corner him and get some answers without even having to ask. If the Flash was convinced that Len was doing him more good than harm, for a time, then it would be all the better. It would draw the heat off of Len and onto Sam. And Sam…well, Lisa had assured him that Sam could always escape, if things went south.

“Took longer than you thought, Sis?” Len asked when he heard the door creak open. Animal Planet played on the television, the cable filched from an unsuspecting neighbor. Paying for one cable bill was more than enough, Len figured. He didn’t use it enough that the city would notice the minimal strain on its power grid.

“She didn’t go for it,” Lisa said, throwing her jacket across the worn couch. “Saw right through me.” Lisa didn’t seem particularly upset, Len thought. She stripped off her shirt, next, grabbing the tank she’d discarded when she’d gone to meet Scudder.

Len kept his cool. “But?” Lisa wouldn’t give up that easily, nor stay away that long if her task had been a complete failure.

“ _But_ I’m persuasive,” Lisa said, flicking her tongue out. And Len…had assumed as much, but the explicit confirmation was something he could have done without. Len, for his part, could never deny his sister—had never been able to. Family was family. But everyone else in the world eventually bent to her particular skills. Mostly, those skills involved the breaking of arms or, lately, covering creative parts of their bodies in gold. Once in a blue moon, with people like Cisco or Sam, Lisa would use her _other_ talents. Part of him was sure that she’d learned it watching him seduce unsuspecting executives and guards. It was remarkable what a charming smile and a lie could do for Len. The real trick was getting them to stay. Len hadn’t figured that part out.

“Said she had plans that needed a professional’s touch, anyway.” Lisa smiled, crossing into the kitchen. “I didn’t pay much attention when she started geeking out over mirrors, and I know that you’d try to take over her op, but I think you’ll both get you what you want. She’ll contact you.” She hummed as she rummaged through their fridge. It wasn’t well stocked—few perishables made it to their safe houses. He heard her grumble, but she pulled out a beer for herself and one for Len. She tossed it. “So, Lenny. Why was your CSI boy toy at the wake?”

He’d been waiting for this conversation, had known it was coming. Len took a swig of beer from the bottle, and brooded. “You’re still convinced that we’re dating?”

“No,” Lisa said. “But I _am_ convinced that there’s something you’re not telling me. Teasing you until you give me the real deets is all a girl can do. And unless you’re gonna spill…” Len glared at her. “Guess not. He _did_ keep you in line. You looked like you were gonna ice the zombie. But he stopped you. How _interesting_.”

Len’s set his jaw and sighed through his nose. Another pull on his bottle and it was half-gone. “He wasn’t exactly pointing my way for help, Lise. Not a lot of options the kid could’ve had running through his head.” Allen’s scream hadn’t given him much indication, but the likelihood that the Flash would be reaching for him in his time of need was low. Very low. The likelihood that the kid wouldn’t want him to ice something—someone, in this case—was higher.

Lisa was already moving on. “How does this help us, anyway? If we were pulling a heist while Samantha distracted the Flash, then I could maybe see what your next move is. But we’re not.”

He couldn’t tell her much without revealing the Flash’s identity. And some twisted sense of honor in the cold pit of his gut told him not to do that. (The pragmatic side agreed, even if it was half-sure that the Flash already thought Lisa knew his identity from his little stunt at Jitters.) “I’ve been…casing the Flash. Finding out more about him. The CSI works with him, with the detectives. He let it slip that the Flash could travel in time. You see why I might be concerned. We can slow him down, Lise, but what if he cracks? What if, one day, he has enough of us Rogues?”

His sister’s eyes widened at that as her mind ran through the possibilities that power afforded the Flash. It probably hadn’t occurred to the Flash, that he could go back to stop Len from ever figuring out his identity, from ever getting his gun in the first place—maybe it had, and he didn’t want to deal with Reverse-Flash again, or he was scared of ripping open the city again. But Len knew. Everyone had a breaking point, even the Flash. He had a good idea of what some of Allen’s triggers might be, but he couldn’t be sure. So, it was better to get close to the Flash, briefly, learn more about how his actual powers worked. “If we can convince the Flash,” he said, “that we’re the lesser of his threats, if we can capture his attention in a positive way, then maybe he’ll let his hackles down. We can keep an eye on him, while Scudder’s distracting him. Maybe it’ll tell us something we didn’t know before—something _useful_.” What that might be, Len had no idea. The Flash was godlike, in his power, and, as far as Len knew, the only limits to his powers were the Flash’s own imagination—and he was sure that Allen wasn’t going to lay out the uses of his powers _for_ Len. “Failing that, we regroup.”

Len hoped that it didn’t have to come to that. If he could make Allen reveal things to him _and_ minimize the risk of his pissing off the Flash? Well, that’d be a plan worthy of the Flash’s nemesis. And Len wasn’t any commonplace villain. He was Captain Cold.

xxx

Work returned to normal Monday, and Eddie returned with it. Iris had tried to talk him out of it, but he’d insisted that he was fine. Barry had thought that the two of them explaining what had happened with Wells would convince him to, at least, take a couple days to recover, but it had made him all the more eager to return to work. Iris had agreed, but with the caveat that Barry was going to be her spy—a task which Barry agreed to wholeheartedly.

Except that Joe and Iris had jinxed the slow days the CCPD had been having, and Eddie’s return was heralded with the lot of them being dragged out into a crime scene.

“What have we got, Joe?” Eddie asked. His meeting with Captain Singh had nearly given the older man a heart attack. Singh had wanted to know who, and why, and where, and Eddie had tried—valiantly, he assured them—to explain his absence. It had gone…well, if you considered Singh agreeing to drop the subject and give Eddie his job back well. And Barry had been totally right, Singh _had_ been holding out onto the hope that Eddie would return.

“Nothing,” Joe said, sighing. “There’s evidence that a break-in occurred, but the cameras don’t show anything.” Eddie tried to interject, but Joe added, “The footage wasn’t tampered with or looped, and the cameras were on the entire time. This is the second time this week that someone’s called in about a break-in without any proof that someone actually broke in. There’s a similar case in Keystone, so Singh finally decided to send someone over.”

Barry knelt to the floor, scanning it for clues, residue, anything. Nothing where he was kneeling. Barry moved across the expanse of the room—there wasn’t much ground to cover. Who would break into a pizza shop anyway? Well, maybe Ronnie. Eddie tried again, “What about the security systems? Any connection? Have we checked to make sure it wasn’t just a short?”

“Zip. Nada. No connection. The city’s power grid didn’t have any blips. Everything was functioning as it should. Not a damn thing out of place, either. Almost like the perp was doing it for their own amusement.” Barry leaned down, looking below the counter. Bingo.

“Joe, Eddie! Look.” The dust coated the edge of the wall, but only just. Wouldn’t have been terribly out of place—almost looked like flour, if you weren’t paying too much attention. But when Barry moved his hand over it, careful not to touch or disturb it, there was a faint shimmer. He grabbed a swab from his pack and ran it through. “I’ll have to run some tests on it, but it’s the only lead we’ve got.”

“Think it could be a meta?” Joe asked.

“A meta without some kind of M.O. or a body count?” Eddie said, the corners of his mouth pressed into a tight frown. “Doesn’t seem likely.” Barry shot Eddie a look, to which Eddie returned a shrug. Joe frowned. “I’m just saying. You’re just about the only friendly meta I’ve met, Barr. The rest of them mostly try to kill everyone they can get their hands on.” Which was…harsh, if statistically true.

“You okay, Eddie?” he asked, slipping his swab into an evidence bag and standing. “You sure you don’t wanna sit this one out?”

“I’m fine,” Eddie said, the slight hint of anger slipping off of him. “Long night.” He smiled. “I’ll get a better one tonight.”

“Not if we don’t get a lead on this case, you won’t,” Joe said, clapping him on the back. Eddie jerked forward from the force of it, causing Barry to step back. The floor crunched.

Wait, what? Eddie and Joe shot him a look as Barry crouched back down, rubbing his hand along the floor near where he’d found the residue. He hadn’t seen anything there, but his hands caught on chips of something sharp, nearly piercing through his glove. Barry jerked his hand back. What the—?

“What is it, Barry?” Joe asked, eager.

“I…I’m not sure. Here, lemme…” He grabbed another evidence bag from his pack and tried, carefully, to maneuver the larger of the shards into it. Which was hard when he was trying to manipulate something he couldn’t see. The evidence bag sagged as he dropped the shard. Okay, so he wasn’t entirely hallucinating. “But I think we found our lead.” He held tightly to the bag. “But I don’t think the CCPD’s going to be able to handle this one alone.” Barry grabbed two more bags, another swab, and attempted to reproduce the evidence to the best of his ability. Which wasn’t too hard, since the invisible shards seemed to litter the ground.

“We’ll cover for you, Barry. Go,” Eddie urged, taking the second set of bags from Barry. “Try to hurry back, though? Singh’s actually in a good mood today, no idea why. He might not even look for you. So, you know, don’t give him a _reason_ to.” Eddie shooed him again, and Barry was off, flashing over to the Labs. Papers flew as he entered the Cortex.

Cisco, seeing the baggies in Barry’s hand, smiled. “Finally, some action.”

“Cisco,” Caitlin chided. “Isn’t encouraging crime kind of standing in the way of everything we…stand for?” Barry snorted. “Zip it, Allen.” She glared at him playfully. Barry had to agree with Cisco, though. He was beginning to miss this. And Cisco, he could tell, had missed the toys. Cisco took and passed the swab to Caitlin, but gave Barry a weird look as he handled the second bag.

“Barry,” he started. “Why’d you give me an empty—and weirdly heavy—bag?” He reached his hand in before Barry could react, slicing his finger open. “Shit. Ow. _Warning_ , dude?”

“Sorry!” Barry said. “You didn’t give me time to explain!”

“You’re the fastest man alive,” Cisco said, and setting down the shard on the table. “Explain faster!”

“Guys,” Caitlin interjected. “ _Look_.” Barry was about to ask what she meant when he noticed it. There was a thin line of blood, trickling down the shard, coloring it just enough so that you could make out an edge.

“Aw man. Gross. Now there’s blood all over it.”

“Cisco, that’s your blood,” Caitlin reminded him.

“Still gross!” Cisco shuddered, picking up the shard much more gently this time. The parts that weren’t covered in blood were still invisible, but Cisco seemed fascinated. “It’s like the light can’t even pass through, or reflect, or get stopped.”

“Aren’t those, like, the only three options?” Barry asked, sitting on the edge of one of the tables in the room.

“That’s the thing. They are. Even if something’s completely see-through, you still get an edge or a glare, especially if someone touches it. This,” he gestured to the blood-stained bit, “is obviously an edge, but this,” he pointed to the equivalent end without the stains, “should also be a side. But we can’t see it. So, maybe it’s tricking our eyes somehow?” He moved to one of the consoles, still nursing his mostly-not-bleeding-anymore finger.

“So, it’s, what, some kind of tech?” Barry asked, turning to Caitlin, who had begun to look at the swab under a microscope as the boys spoke.

“Could be, my man, but it’ll take some time to figure it out. In the meantime, maybe…” Cisco paused in his work, looking up at Barry. “Did the CCPD check the cameras?”

“Of course they did.” What, did Cisco think his department was from _Gotham_?

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Even the cameras on the streets?”

“They _should_ have, Cisco. What’s your point?”

“What if your perp was using the same kind of tech on himself, Barry,” Cisco said patiently. “There might be a point where he—or she—was on camera, right? Or where someone disappeared? When did you say the alarm went off?” Barry hadn’t. “Look around that timeframe.”

That was a very, very good point. But the CCPD would be _way_ too slow, if they had to check every camera on every street individually, so they wouldn’t spend the resources. They weren’t the Flash. “I’m on it.” And then Barry was at the hub he’d only very recently learned how to use—it wasn’t hard, but there were almost too many buttons. He sent a silent thanks to Felicity that their systems were fully equipped to look at footage from every camera on the city’s network.

It took him a few minutes of fast-forwarding and rewinding the footage, several different paths of entry and possibly paths of exits, but _finally_ a woman disappeared. More accurately, she was there in on one camera, slipped into a blind spot, and the next few cameras—and the cameras of any shops she could have walked into—were blank. Barry searched the other cameras in the city over the next twenty minute block of time and couldn’t find her on anything. Fortunately, the first camera had a clear shot of her face. Gotcha. “I found something!”

“Silver residue!” Caitlin said soon after Barry pulled the woman’s face up on the main monitor. Then after a moment of frenzied typing, “Cisco, you said the shard wasn’t reflecting the light, right? What if it was projecting the opposing side? Would there be a delay on the projection?”

“Caitlin, I could kiss you,” Cisco said, nearly dropping the shard on the table. He raced down and to the bathroom. Team Flash was back in action, and absolutely killing it.

“Please don’t!” she called back to him, but she was laughing. This was great, this was awesome. Everything was going to go back to normal.

“Barry, I need you to bleed on one side of this,” Cisco said as he came back into the room. He held what Barry assumed was the cleaned shard out to Barry.

“W-what?” Barry asked, appropriately scandalized. Okay, maybe he’d been wrong. Cisco wasn’t exactly normal, even on his best days.

“Come on, man. You heal! It’ll be fine. Just make sure to get it on only one side.”

“Couldn’t we do this with _ink_?” Barry was starting to panic, nervous laughter bubbling in his gut, when a cool voice echoed from the entryway.

“Easy now. No one has to open a vein,” Captain Cold said.

xxx

Len wasn’t a snitch, nor an information broker. But, he couldn’t deny that, if the S.T.A.R. Labs crew was as decent at their jobs as Len assumed they were, they’d be finding Sam’s information within hours of the CCPD realizing they should be taking the break-ins seriously. Speeding up the process wasn’t infringing upon Sam’s future loyalty. The security on the place was top-notch, but he’d been breaking into buildings since he’d gotten away from his father.

He was surprised that Allen and company hadn’t noticed his arrival, but, then, he had walked into Ramon yelling at Flash to bleed on something. They were distracted. Which made his entrance all the more ominous. Len smiled as he walked into their base, “Easy now. No one has to open a vein.”

Dr. Snow gasped and Cisco nearly dropped whatever it was that he’d been holding. He seemed to hold onto it, but only just. Len couldn’t see _what_ it was that the man was turning over in his hands, but he assumed it was one of Sam’s tricks. “Her name is Samantha Scudder.” He waited, then, for any of them to move, to give any indication that they weren’t going to sicc the Flash on him. When they didn’t, he tried again, “She’s your target. Used to work for a subsidiary of Wayne Tech.” He waved a hand at the group.

Cisco was the first to move, though he kept a wary eye on Len. He grabbed a tablet from the closest surface, typing some quick things into it and pulling up Sam’s record on the monitor where the grainy shot of her face had previously been. “Says here that she worked in their optics department, developed _mirrors_. Which checks with what we’ve already learned. So she, what, has a grudge against her former bosses?” Cisco looked at Len appraisingly, grumbling, “Never seen that motive before.”

“Not likely. Has she been breaking into any Wayne Tech facilities?” Cisco shook his head. “Boy, if this is the city’s finest offerings, we’re in _trouble_.”

“Why are you here, Cold?” Allen asked. Always to the point, the kid.

“Can’t a concerned citizen offer some information to his city’s heroes?” Len asked, holding Allen’s glare. “Maybe she owes me money.” He smirked as the kid’s face fell. “I just want to help, Barry. Is that so hard to believe?” Allen’s face went from disbelieving to amused.

“Absolutely,” Barry said. “But I have a trouble believing pretty much anything you say. Recent events notwithstanding, obviously.” And there it was. An admission, an in. The kid still thought he owed Len for being a jerk. Allen’s own moral high ground was going to bite him in the ass, but it wasn’t Len’s job to save him from that unfortunate fate.

“She dated my sister,” Len said calmly. “And she’s operating in my city without going through me first.” It was a half-truth. As much information as he could give them. Cisco’s eyes caught on the mention of his sister, though to his credit his eyes didn’t glaze over like most men at the mention of her having a girlfriend. Lisa didn’t need any creeps in her life—well, none in her life that weren’t crushed under her heel. “I want her taken down, so do you. I don’t see why I can’t help you out.”

“The last time you helped us out, you sabotaged the entire thing.” And, ah, there was some of the fire that Allen had been missing over their last few encounters. He _wondered_ when it would make its resurgence.

“I wasn’t asking for your trust, Scarlet. But if you want to throw a chance to put her away before her plan moves forward, then by all means…send me away.” Len started to turn, to walk out, but Flash was in front of him. Blocking his way, indecision and distrust plain on his face. There was just enough distance between them for Scarlet to reach out and grab him by the front of his sweater. This close, Len noticed that the Flash had an inch or so on him. Len grinned, leaving the Flash looking unsettled. “I’ve called a meeting with her tonight. I’ll text you the location, Kid. Be on time.”

He moved past the Flash, and out the door. Allen didn’t try to stop him, but Len had seen the micro-expression cross his face. He’d be there. And so would Sam Scudder, if Len had anything to do with it.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, Scudder messaging him the location for their actual meeting. Scudder didn’t want Len knowing the location of her hideout, but Lisa? Lisa, she was more than happy to reveal the location to. And more than happy to go and meet her big, bad brother. But on her terms and at a location she picked out. At least she was showing up.

Lisa had asked if he’d wanted her there, but there was no point to it. Better to have Lisa on standby in case something went sour. The worse that could happen was a minor setback in Len’s plans. If he played his cards right, Sam would play into that plan. If not, he might still get enough information out of her to work the plan to his advantage.

The sun began to set, and Len set out for the docks. They were mostly abandoned, by this point, most of the normal workers having been sent away. Central wasn’t a huge port—mostly small commercial ships that couldn’t afford to fly their stock in, or didn’t trust Len not to ice another train. He remembered going out to the docks when he was a kid, asking his grandfather why he couldn’t swim in the water. Pollution had been worse, then, and the city had cleaned up its act a bit. Sometimes, a mob would take someone here to dump them, but only if they were a nobody. Everyone checked the docks first.

The woman was on time, a mark in her favor. She stood nearly as tall as Len, though part of that was from her wedge heels. It was easy to see why Lisa would go for her—silky brown hair, expensive tastes, glittering everything. Len generally went for partners a bit less ostentatious. “So,” she said evenly, something holstered in a belt—if it was a gun, Len didn’t recognize the make. “Lissy tells me that you’re looking for a distraction?”

“I am,” Len said. He held out his hand, she shook it. She was sizing him up, too. Probably wondering how he’d ended up with a sister like Lisa—he could admit that, other than their cunning and career choice, Len and Lisa had little in common. There was a wrinkle to Sam Scudder that he hadn’t smoothed over, yet. “I hear you’re looking to get yourself caught—make a name for yourself and make your big escape? It’s a stupid risk.”

Samantha laughed. “My chances of escape aren’t reflected in what your eyes might see, Leonard.” She smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll give the Flash a run for his money. Both of us get what we want.” There was something shining in her eyes, but Len couldn’t pick it out. She was good at mirroring his body language, giving away nothing more than she wanted.

“But, Leonard, there is _one_ thing I need from you. One final piece of my equation to be put in place. I hear you’re the best, when it comes to getting into places you’re not wanted…”

“I’m listening.”

xxx

“He froze the cameras,” Cisco said, groaning. “That asshole got past our security system and froze our cameras.” He let his head fall forward and smack on the edge of the desk. Barry was pacing, and was half-sure he’d slip into super speed if he wasn’t careful. Cold was a liar, and a criminal, and he hurt people, but Barry could also believe that he’d get the Flash to do his work for him, if it was too much trouble to handle it himself—if it cost him too much precious time.

“You can’t trust him, Barry,” Caitlin said, hand on his shoulder. “You _know_ that, right?” Caitlin’s expression was hard, but how could he blame her? Cold and Rory had kidnapped her. He was surprised Cisco hadn’t said anything yet…which was when he did.

“No way in hell, man.” Cisco glared up from where he’d slouched, brow furrowed in thought. “But…that doesn’t mean he won’t lead us straight to Scudder. There has to be something we’re missing, something Cold either doesn’t want to tell us or doesn’t know.” He seemed to give a moment to digest, before he started typing on his keyboard. A moment later, an image popped up on one of the screens. He read aloud, “Samantha Scudder. Cold wasn’t lying about her working for a Wayne Tech splinter. Says here that she was researching light and optics before the particle accelerator explosion. But, unlike some of our metas, she didn’t leave her job until a couple months after. And she did _leave_.”

“So, no grudge, then,” Barry said.

“She might have a grudge, but it’s not her motivator. The places she broke into have no connection to Wayne Tech _or_ each other.”

“All we know is that she left something behind. _And_ that we might not be able to see it,” Caitlin said. “We don’t know enoughabout what she’s planning.”

“If we take her in, does it matter?” Barry asked. And, really, did it? If she was planning to steal something, or set off something, she’d had more than enough time to do it. But she hadn’t. If she was using stolen tech to do it, Wayne Tech might have something to say about it, but they hadn’t reported anything missing—Barry would’ve heard about _that_. “If Snart wants to help us, I say we let him. If he says we owe him, we laugh in his face.” Barry’s clenched his teeth. It bugged him that they couldn’t solve this—especially after they’d had such promising luck with the mirror tech.

“If I were Cold, I’d just…freeze her. It’s not like he’s had any problems doing that before.” Caitlin looked pointedly at Cisco. “It’s too dangerous, Barry. At least let Ronnie and Martin go with you.”

“Safety in numbers, bro. What if she’s got a trap planned for Cold?”

“Fine,” he said. “But they stick behind unless I give a signal. I don’t want to take any chances, but I don’t want Scudder to freak out and escape. If she goes invisible, I won’t be able to find her. And I think…Cold might be there, too. In case I don’t show.”

“And what if he’s working with her, Barry? You’re be iced before you had a chance to get away,” Caitlin said. Her lips were in a thin line, arms crossed. But what could she do to stop him? This was a shot at stopping Scudder before she could finish doing whatever it was she was doing. Barry was _going_ to take it.

“Let’s just play it by ear, okay?” he said finally.

The next few hours passed quickly. Barry texted Joe and made sure that Joe and Eddie were on standby for when Barry brought Scudder in. Firestorm was waiting, comm open, for any sign that Barry might be in trouble. They’d established a signal, but if Barry went down, there was no telling he’d be able to give it. An unknown number sent a location to his phone—an amusement park? Cisco and Caitlin had shot him an uneasy look at that, and he couldn’t blame them for being worried. They were rusty. He was rusty—the petty robbers of the past few weeks had been child’s play. Hopefully, Scudder would just be another two-bit. The pit of his gut told him another story.

The owners of the amusement park had locked it up for the colder weather, and hadn’t had the chance to open it back up—still too many days under their ideal temperature. It was so dead inside, no guards or anything, that it only took him seconds to case the entirety of it. No sign of Scudder anywhere. Barry flashed his way back to the entrance, glancing at the map and groaning when he saw the name of one of the attractions. The Maze of Mirrors.

“I’m going in, guys,” he said, flashing over to where the map told him he’d find the Maze.

“Be careful, Barry,” Caitlin said.

He approached the entrance to the Maze of Mirrors slowly. They knew so little about the technology Scudder was using—Cisco had found out when he’d tried to hack Wayne Tech that the blueprints were kept off the servers. They’d gotten some code names, but nothing else. Whoever designed their security was a nut.

As he entered, a voice boomed from the speakers overhead, “Well, what do we have here? The Flash? I should’ve _known_ Leonard wouldn’t be so late. Traitor.” Barry scanned the building, looking for a source. There were mirrors lining the edges of the walls, and—true to its name—mirrors arranged in a maze. Barry had a vague memory of visiting this place as a kid, maybe with his dad, but it had been years. If he’d actually needed to get through the maze, he would’ve had to start from scratch. It would’ve been much easier with his speed, of course, but the anxiety in Barry’s stomach told Barry a different story. “Good thing I was already planning on _dealing_ with him.”

And, alright, this was a trap.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, you know. Lisa tells me your Cold’s new project,” the voice was high, almost musical. “She did say that Len liked a good challenge, and, my, what an _interesting_ challenge you are.” She laughed, and it echoed off the walls. God, she was more theatrical than Cold. Barry hadn’t thought that was possible.

“I don’t know what your plan is, Scudder, but you’re…not going to get away with it.” Barry tried to give his voice some gravitas, but it was harder when his supervillains hadn’t told him their plans. It sounded almost lame. He gazed around, looking for some sign that she was actually in the building—and, shit, she could be talking from anywhere, he realized. He flashed back towards the entrance, but a mirror had slid over it.

“Please, Flash, call me the _Mirror Master_.” Barry heard Cisco swear over his comm. Oh great, she’d already named herself. “And what I want is to _evolve_.” Barry spun around, suddenly surrounded by dozens of copies of Scudder, smiling eerily at him. “And you’re going to help me.”

These were all just projections, meant to confuse him. Which meant there was something more, underneath all of the gimmicks. Maybe she was hiding behind a mirror. Maybe one of them was hollow? It would take too much time to try every single one. The Mirror Masters on the wall raised a gun— _another_ gun?—and pulled the trigger, and Barry barely darted out of the way as a beam of light shot from the mirror he had been standing in front of. God, had Scudder rigged this entire maze to be a deathtrap? He slid under another beam as it nearly took his nose off.

“Stop playing games, Scudder!” He ran back-and-forth through the maze. If he left—if he could leave—Scudder would get away. And now she was dangerous—he couldn’t just let her go on with whatever her plan was. Evolving didn’t sound pleasant for the rest of the human race. It reminded him of the speeches Wells had given towards the end about being so much _better_ than him. And, shit, shit. He nearly ran straight into his reflection.

“You really are something else, aren’t you, Flash?” Scudder said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Taunting him. A laser grazed his shoulder. Fuck. This tech was advanced, even for Wayne Tech. “But I think it’s time to _really_ put you to the test. I’m in here, Flash. You can find me. But if you try to break the mirrors, if you break the _wrong_ mirror, it’ll set off a bomb—and we’ll both go up in smoke!” The reflections tapped their wrists. “You’re on the clock.” Barry was half-expecting a timer to appear on all of the mirrors, but that would be too easy. He had no way of knowing if Scudder would just get bored of him and set the bomb off anyway. Why was she so willing to blow herself up with him?

“Barry, Ronnie’s trying to get in, but Mirror Master’s got a laser locked onto him. It’s fast. He can’t get close enough to get in. You have to get out of there,” Caitlin said, frantic.

“I can’t just leave her here, Caitlin!” Barry yelled, darting and weaving. The lasers were coming more rapidly now, anticipating his speed, knowing where he was running. “The exits are closed and I can’t stay in one place long enough to vibrate out.”

“You’re going to have to bust through the wall, Barry! What if she’s lying? What if she’s not in here at all? Do you really think she’d be willing to blow herself up?” She had a point, but Barry had to trust his gut. And his gut told him that Mirror Master wasn’t lying.

“Wait, Cisco!” Barry called, stopping in his tracks. A laser caught him in his chest. Ow. Ow. “You said that the tech would have a delay, right?” He started running again, gaining speed. Can’t stop. Not now. Time was running out.

“Right, _right_. If she’s controlling the images from somewhere inside the maze, one of the reflections would be faster than the others. Of course! Barry, you have to _run_.”

“Already trying that Cisco. But this is a _really_ messed up game of dodgeball.” And Barry had never been any good at sports.

“It’s only going to be infinitesimally faster, Barry,” Caitlin said. “You need to block everything out and _focus_.”

“Go to your happy place, man, or something. Fast!”

And then his comm clicked off. Barry ran, back and forth, blocking out the sound of Mirror Master’s laughter and the lasers firing. He felt his body energized, the Speed Force rushing into him. But Barry didn’t want to turn back the clock; he just wanted to slow things _down_. The lasers were coming slower now, but still not slow enough. None of the reflections looked out of place. Damn it. Damn it.

Barry focused on the gun, on Scudder’s finger on the trigger. On the way her lips moved as she tried to taunt him. Slowing down, moving at a snail’s pace, and when the beam shot from the reflected gun, he noticed the one mirror that went off first, finally. Barry ran straight into it.

The glass shattered as Barry drove himself through the mirror. He smacked into the real Mirror Master, only just managing to move to the side. Her back slammed back into the wall as Barry went careening into some kind of console. He felt it spark and shock, felt the energy run through his body. And then it was over. The last thing he remembered before passing out was the flare of heat—Firestorm.

xxx

Len watched the destruction of Scudder’s Maze from his cameras. They’d returned from breaking into the location that Scudder had rattled off—a real dump, even for Len’s relatively low standards—and placing her tech while the Flash was distracted. If Flash survived this, Len was sure the CCPD would let him know in the morning. But, fuck, he _had_ said not to kill the kid, right? Allen was looking more and more haggard as the lasers took their toll. Len’s brow furrowed as he watched the kid take a blow to his chest. Behind him, Lisa made a noise in the back of her throat.

“You sure this is the best plan, Lenny?” It was a rare moment of sympathy from Lisa, though Len wasn’t sure if she was more worried about the kid or Sam. She set a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. Scudder wasn’t any crueler, any more determined than Len, and she was _winning_. So why didn’t it feel like winning?

“It has to be, Sis.” The microphones were picking up everything Flash was saying. Nothing too out of the ordinary, yet, though vibrating through _walls_ was useful information. But, then, the cameras were showing the Flash was moving too fast for either of them to see, only the occasional cracks of lightning appearing. The connection shorted out twenty seconds later, with only three seconds left on Scudder’s countdown.

It was days later when he saw the footage plastered on the news. Sam Scudder had disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post this after the premiere last night, but I was super amused by some of the weird things that it confirmed for me. (A lot of the last chapter felt like it could have fit really well in the premiere? My aforementioned best friend and I were texting a lot of "WHAT" at each other.) However, it didn't reshuffle anything in this fic—so don't expect spoilers for a lot of S2 unless it's super unintentional (or a character thing that informs Len or Barry).
> 
> Originally, the fight in the Maze was a lot less of a puzzle and a lot more "Barry punches things!" You have my best friend to thank for soothing my anxiety about the original draft of this. I think it works a lot better now, personally.
> 
> Meanwhile, I feel the need to apologize for Len.
> 
> I could go into detail about the decision to make Sam a lady, but it dips into some minor spoilers. I'm half-tempted to write a one-shot with Sam, and that may come to fruition later. You haven't seen the last of her!
> 
> As always, come friend me on Tumblr~ speculativefrictions.tumblr.com!
> 
> P.S. Did anyone catch the half-pun in the title? ;)
> 
> NEXT: "Reflect-Me-Not"


	3. Reflect-Me-Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scudder disappears, then reappears. Len feels something akin to guilt. All bad things must come to an end. 
> 
> (See below for some fairly lengthy notes.)

Barry was beginning to think that S.T.A.R. Labs was his second home with the amount of time he spent passed out on the bed in the infirmary. More often than not, it was with shrapnel—or in this case, glass—sticking out of his body at odd angles after a fight. From what he remembered of the fight and what he had been able to piece together from context, Firestorm had been able to get inside of the Maze once Mirror Master’s computer system had been taken out.

And, if the mess of blood on Ronnie’s shirt was anything to go off of, Barry’s body had had some trouble healing around the shards. At least, at first. Barry was sure it’d just encompassed the shards eventually. He sent silent thanks skyward for whoever was listening and had decided that Barry, yes, could and should be unconscious for the systematic removal of the glass from his body. He didn’t envy a version of himself that had been awake for that. He didn’t particularly envy Caitlin for being saddled with the task, either, but at least she was sort of used to it by now. Which really said something about his adventures in super heroics, if he was being completely honest with himself.

CCPD had shown up at the Maze shortly after Ronnie had flown him out. Scudder had gone in easily, since she was super unconscious. Things slid quickly back to normal, between the capture and her trial, and that really should’ve been their first clue. Then, she went and vanished. To say it threw a wrench in the proceedings would be an understatement. No one had really cared about Scudder’s trail, and so they’d managed to keep it under wraps for all of twelve hours, just long enough for the fallout to be that much worse because of their hiding it.

No one knew who did it, but the security footage from Samantha Scudder’s disappearance from Central City’s courthouse had been leaked, had made its way to a lesser news station, and had been picked up by Central City Picture News immediately afterwards. Iris had sent him and apologetic text message, though her name wasn’t directly connected with the copy of the video posted to the front page of Central City Picture News’ website. The CCPD was taking some—most—of the heat. After witnessing the disappearance with their own eyes and having had it confirmed that the footage was real, by the CCPD trying to save face, people had started assuming that Scudder was a metahuman. Which made them angrier, since pretty much everyone with the CCPD and with the mayor’s office had promised as much transparency as possible with the metahumans. Unfortunately, they didn’t believe Singh when he’d assured them that she wasn’t, remotely, a meta.

Captain Singh was angry, angrier still after the press fiasco. That wasn’t new, really. He wasn’t yelling at Barry, this week, mostly just sending increasingly passive-aggressive requests via Joe and Eddie for a lead—any lead. He’d probably investigate a speck of dirt on the floor of the courthouse that had been left behind from Scudder’s shoes. Barry was counting down until that moment, frankly, but until then, he was mostly helping the S.T.A.R. Labs team when he could.

Professor Stein and Cisco had been rabidly at work trying to prove, scientifically, where Mirror Master had gone. There was no way, they said in a loud clamor of science and pondering, that she had just up and disappeared. Cisco kept referencing Shawna Baez’s file, just in case Scudder was, impossibly, a meta or there was some greater conspiracy underfoot. But all of them knew that even Peek-a-Boo wouldn’t have been able to get her out of there without the entire room noticing. What the CCPD had been able to find of Sam’s tech had been confiscated, and Cisco couldn’t just go steal it back, though he’d asked Barry multiple times. Sam wasn’t hiding in the city, either. Barry had run himself around the city time and time again, stopping crime and searching. It was getting old and, more importantly, depressing. Barry had reviewed the footage a thousand times, but there was nothing.

Scudder was there, and then she wasn’t. She’d smiled through her trial. Barry kept thinking back to their fight. Was this the evolution that she was talking about? Disappearing in the middle of a courthouse—had she somehow found a way through her fight with Barry to become a meta? When would she have even gotten the _time?_ When Barry had voiced that concern to Caitlin, he’d been hooked up to a machine and given every test Caitlin could think of. There was nothing in his blood, in his cells, in anything, that was any different than normal.

They had nothing.

xxx

The sound of silence, of nothing, had never bothered Len. But the distinct lack of Lisa’s running commentary on whichever show happened to be running in the background to Len’s thoughts, or Mick’s constant grousing at her to shut it, was actually a bit maddening. He’d needed to get away. Stew in his thoughts for a bit.

Len kept an apartment in Central City, removed from both his name and his work. The only person who had access to the apartment, save for Len, was Lisa. Sometimes, when things were dire and they needed a break, they would go back to the apartment. Len and Lisa would act like any normal family, or, at least, what a normal family supposedly acted like. Neither of them had experienced enough stability in their lives to make it anything _more_ than an act.

The neighborhood, Birnam, existed in a peculiar place in the grand scheme of Central City. It’s status as an up-and-coming neighborhood was never disputed, and yet nothing had changed since Len had acquired the place several years back. Somehow, it had been spared the rising property costs of the city’s center, and so most of the small businesses had managed to stay afloat. Crime was average—nearly normalized to the city’s standards. Birnam, bluntly, blended in with the rest of Central City. And so it was a place no one expected to find Leonard Snart in.

The money that Len had used to fund the acquisition was ill-gotten, but he’d gotten very good at covering his tracks. With his criminal file destroyed courtesy of the Flash, any speck of evidence tying his name to the apartment was all but forgotten. The apartment itself was furnished in cool colors—browns, blues, blacks, and the occasional gray or beige. Len had picked most of it. The floors were a dark mahogany, replaced a year after he’d moved in from the carpeting that had previously covered most of the floors. A master connected to the full bath, full kitchen, open and bright living room, and a half-bath. Len had put the money from two _large_ heists into this apartment. It was his.

Since no one knew it existed, Len could safely retire there when he needed to be alone. Lisa would, always, figure out where he had ended up. Usually, she would stay away. Len’s anger wasn’t like their fathers—he would never hurt Lisa—but it was an ugly thing. Neither Lisa nor Len liked the person that Len became when he was angry or drinking far beyond his limits.

Despite the lavish furnishing, there was a brutal kind of simplicity to Len’s life. Getting out of bed, stalking potential heists, working odd jobs under fake names, retiring to safe houses to repeat the pattern—all of that was easy. The hardest parts were doing right by the people in his life that mattered. The more of those people there were, the harder it became to go through the motions. Len was under no illusions that he had anything going for him—stellar personality, aside. He’d come to peace with the kind of man that he was a long time ago, content merely in the fact that he’d never be the kind of man his father was.

Until the Flash, there had been no reason to change any of that. Lewis Snart was stuck in Iron Heights. Len was doing what he knew how to do, and Lisa or Mick could be counted on for some amount of interaction so that he didn’t lose his mind. But Allen had changed things, had forced Len to change things. Some days, he liked that change. Others, he was unsettled by it. His decisions were usually calculated, outcomes planned in advance and unlikely to occur any other way. A death was a death. Even the kid’s death wouldn’t matter, overall.

Except, that wasn’t true anymore, was it? When he thought of the Flash’s getting iced, he could barely stomach it. It wasn’t affection; it wasn’t even remorse. It was fear. As much as Len could see the potential for Barry’s turn to the dark side, there was really no evidence to back him up. But the promise of something darker followed the kid. The monster in the dark had killed the kid’s mother. Len wasn’t vying for Citizen of the Year, but he knew what separated him from the Reverse-Flash. And that difference was everything.

Their truce, shoddy as it had been, had solidified their game. A lesser “evil” and a hero, playing an act for the city to eat up while the real monsters were taken out. So long as the citizens of Central thought Captain Cold, the Rogues, or random metahumans were there biggest issues, Barry could only be a beacon. The kid needed the constant reminder of what he wasn’t to solidify what he was. But Reverse-Flash was something incomprehensible—too personal, too irredeemable, and yet still only a man.

Testing Allen had been a mistake. Len hadn’t seen the bigger picture, hadn’t even considered his own role. Mirror Master had proven one thing and one thing only. Knock the Flash down, and he’d get up. Again. But knock him down for good, and something would have to fill the void he’d leave. The kid was the electric heart of the city, the lightning in its veins. With the Flash around, the city was as tame as it had been before the explosion. With the Flash dead, everything would go to shit.

Len took a swig of his beer, unsure if he bought his own logic. There were pragmatic benefits to Barry’s continued existence. The city was relatively tame, when he could stop the threats thrown at him. The Flash was a common enemy around whom the mobs could rally. With their alliances, Len could gather most, if not all, of his intel from the same source. And he could keep tabs on anything that might get in the way of the Flash. Bartering chips, to keep the S.T.A.R. Labs team on their toes. Len was sure he could get anything he wanted in exchange for protecting their science experiment.

The security footage was paused on his laptop, at the moment of Scudder’s disappearance. He might not be interested in testing Barry Allen, but he was certainly interesting in observing him. If he could figure out how Scudder had escaped, he could get to her before they did. He could renegotiate, perhaps, their relationship. The Rogues weren’t going away any time soon, and he needed more members. Mardon and Bivolo had gone underground. Baez had simply turned down his offer. Len could respect that, though his acceptance of her answer was aided by the fact that he’d never manage to catch her.

He played the footage. Samantha Scudder had disappeared and the world, which had been thus far unconcerned with her trial, had blinked.

xxx

Another day, another lead on the Scudder case going cold. It was so bad on the force’s end of things, apparently, that Barry had heard from Joe that some of the cops were placing bets on whether or not the anonymous tips were trolls. Which…well, that wasn’t a total impossibility. People sent in bunk calls all the time, but an influx of them would still be weird. Especially since Scudder hadn’t really had any associates other than the Snart siblings. And, while Barry was reasonably confident that Cold would do pretty much anything to draw him out, they wouldn’t waste time prank calling the CCPD. So, maybe the acknowledgement that metahumans existed had finally caused the city to snap. Or maybe some people were just assholes.

Barry took a chug of coffee, tapping his fingers on his desk and shifting papers around for what felt like the hundredth time. The sun had set below the horizon line and, at this point, that meant Barry should _really_ go home. Or at least head out to the Labs. He looked at his clock to confirm it, and, wow, it was super late. He tried to remember if he’d had any plans he’d forgotten about and, finding none, sighed. This case was really eating into his social life…not that his social life wasn’t basically on life support anyway. But Singh wanted answers and Barry couldn’t really blame the guy. There wasn’t anything Singh, or the CCPD, could do until _someone_ figured out where Scudder had gone. But when the evidence wasn’t tallying up and there weren’t any new leads with any amount of credibility…well, Barry was pretty sure that Singh was ready to call the case, take the hit to the CCPD’s record on the nose. Again. But it didn’t _have_ to go down that way. The Flash could find her; Barry knew it. And if he could find her and put her away, then he had to.

But he needed food, at the very least, before he ran around the city like he was on fire. Big Belly Burger was open, and on the way to S.T.A.R. Labs. Resolute, he moved to get up. And that was approximately the time that Eddie Thawne walked in. Barry’s smiled, but it quickly faded when he saw how tired Eddie looked. There was something to his steps that made Barry uneasy. Was something wrong? Should they have run more tests before letting him come back to work? Hell, Eddie hadn’t looked this haggard even when they’d recovered him from the kidnapping fiasco. This case couldn’t be taking _that_ much out of him, right? As if to answer Barry’s questions, Eddie swayed.

“Whoa, whoa,” Barry said, flashing over to the man to catch him before he fell. “Man, are you okay?”

“Barry?” Eddie blinked up at him, confusion dancing across his face. Barry felt something shift in his stomach. “Where did you come from? How did you get here?” The man tried to look around, but Barry was moving him, as gently as possible, to sit at Barry’s desk. He was glad, then, that he’d managed to snag one of the comfier chairs from the storage closet. Eddie leaned back.

“Eddie, tell me where you think we are.” Barry put his hand to Eddie’s forehead. Burning up, of course. The knot in Barry’s stomach loosened minutely. Eddie was sick. The world wasn’t ending, again.

“This’s my ‘partment. I climbed up the stairs…” Eddie gestured with his hand, or, tried to. It mostly flopped weakly at his side. Barry would’ve laughed, if he wasn’t fumbling for his phone. He could flash Eddie back to his apartment, but jostling him too much if he was nauseous would be a really, really dumb decision. Barry clicked the speed dial and hit Iris’ number.

She picked up after two rings.

“What’s up, Barr?”

“Heeey, Iris. Can you come by the station, maybe?”

“Why?”

“I think Eddie needs a ride back to your place, or to the hospital, possibly. We’re up in my lab and he thinks I’ve, I don’t know, invaded his home. It’s weird, I’m uncomfortable, please help.”

“Oh,” Iris said, soft. “I’m going to kill him.”

And, really, Barry should’ve expected her to hang up and rush over. It was a good thing that she wouldn’t actually kill Eddie, otherwise Eddie wouldn’t have a chance. So, everything was fine. Probably. Barry had been on the receiving end of at least a billion of Iris’ “You asshole, I was worried about you!” lectures. If Eddie was anything like him, he’d take it and apologize and, okay, that was a thought that Barry could’ve done without. He didn’t need to compare himself to Eddie.

Iris arrived in record time. “Should start calling you the speedster,” Barry quipped. She gave him a thin smile as they wrestled her boyfriend into his car. Iris had an extra set of keys for emergencies. Sick boyfriend wrangling was as much an emergency as Eddie and Iris had had recently, and Barry was so, so grateful for that. If Iris or Eddie were a little too busy to get close to Flash-related anything, Barry wasn’t going to complain. They’d circle back to him eventually, he knew, for better or for worse.

As Iris buckled Eddie in, Barry caught Eddie’s eyes. In the night, lit only by the reflections from the streetlamps, they looked darker. Cobalt, almost, instead of the bright blue Barry associated with Eddie and, now that he thought about it, Snart’s eyes were blue, too. Cool blue, he’d probably say. Barry groaned. Maybe he needed some sleep, if his brain was jumping from monologues about Eddie’s eyes to _Leonard Snart’s_ eyes. He usually didn’t monologue about eyes at all, in fact. That was the stuff of cheap romance novels, or something.

“Barry?” Iris’ voice snapped him out of his brain’s mutterings. “You heading to S.T.A.R. Labs?”

“Maybe?” he said. “I need to get some food in me, but, like, I should patrol at least once tonight.”

“Okay. Be careful. All of you have been clocking some serious hourage into this. I don’t think I’ve seen my dad in days.” She walked to the other side of the car, swinging into the driver’s seat.

“I’m a superhero, Iris.” He smirked, trying his best to imitate Oliver. “Evil never sleeps. I can never sleep.”

Iris rolled her eyes, “You love to sleep.”

“True. But, Iris, the _evil_.”

“Goodnight, Barry. You sound ridiculous. Get some sleep.” She shut the door, waving at him one more time before pulling out and driving away.

Barry breathed in the night air, stretching out. He’d run to Big Belly Burger, definitely. But…maybe they could use a night off. All of them. He shot Cisco a text. They could go home. Maybe evil would sleep tonight. He started running. There was a strange charge in the air that Barry couldn’t quite place. It didn’t feel like his connection to the Speed Force, or the charge after any sort of lightning, really. Barry tried to ignore it, but it only got stronger. He stopped running, skidding to a halt in front of a shop that was closed for the night. He looked around. He could see his reflection staring back at him in the mirror. If he squinted, he could just make out… Barry whipped around, ready to fight. But there was no one there. Shit, how tired was he, if he was feeling things and seeing things in his reflection. Had Mirror Master psyched him out? Blind paranoia wasn’t great, either. Barry frowned.

It kept happening. He’d run, feel something in the air, stop, look around, find nothing. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

When he returned home, Sam Scudder was staring at him from his bathroom mirror.

xxx

Lisa’s timing was one thing Len could never count on. It was an impossible prediction, only put in its place during a heist. Otherwise, she was changeable. Not impulsive or destructive, but no less of a whirlwind. So, though it was their custom for Lisa not to visit the apartment when Len wanted solitude, he could be all that surprised when she opened the door.

Len could see the exact moment that she registered what he was looking at, and that he wasn’t angry or drunk. On the screen, Sam Scudder vanished. Again. To be honest, Len wasn’t looking at the screen anymore. Watching the same footage over and over again wasn’t going to do anything to help him.

“Of _course_ you don’t tell me about this. Of fucking _course_.” Lisa was irate. He should have said something about trying to find Scudder, but it was past the time for being overly concerned.

“I haven’t found anything, Lisa. I would have told you if I had.” She stared at Len for a minute, before throwing her jacket onto his couch. He watched her, waiting out her thought process.

“You aren’t thinking straight.” It wasn’t a question, and Len didn’t need to give her an answer.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that you can’t seriously believe this is your best plan. C’mon, Lenny, take your own advice. Chill out.” She sat across from him at the table, eyes boring a hole into his head. He closed his laptop, looking her in the face.

“I know,” he said.

Lisa, who had looked prepared for a fight, sunk back down into her chair, no longer leaning towards him. “You know?” she echoed, voice lilting in disbelief.

“The Flash isn’t our enemy, though he may think of us as _his_ enemies. Sure, we aren’t banging down his door to join his little team, but that doesn’t mean I’m all that interested in stopping him from what he’s doing. Sending Scudder after him was poorly thought out.”

“Why are you trying to find her, then?”

“She’s much more useful to us as a Rogue than she’d be as a free agent. She lacks vision. The Rogues can bring her focus.”

Lisa sighed.

“Just so long as you’re sure…” Lisa’s voice faded into something like thoughtfulness towards the end. “You know, our lives have been way more complicated since the Flash got here.”

“They have,” Len agreed. “But you were the one telling me to get a life.”

“I’m not sure if this counts as a life.” Len didn’t have anything to counter that. So, he didn’t. Instead, he got up, moving to the half-bath to splash some cool water on his face. He’d been awake too long. When he saw Sam Scudder in his mirror, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to sleep again. His hand went to where his gun would be holstered, but it was in the other room.

“Scudder?” He must’ve actually looked surprised, because the reflection laughed at him. In any other city, he wouldn’t have to deal with this. Least Central kept it interesting without being Gotham, he supposed. But Len didn’t have any more time to interrogate the reflection before it pointed at him and then in the direction of the windows.

“I’m not jumping,” he said, dryly. “But I’ll bite. Meet you downstairs. Got it.”

He grabbed his parka and the gun, grimacing as he tried to explain to Lisa that, yes, he did need to go right now to track her ex-girlfriend through Central City’s windows. Apparently.

Len wished that he had been surprised when Scudder lead both him and the Flash to the same location. The Flash stopped to consider Len for a moment.

“What are you doing here, Snart?” Len stared at him, determined to get through Barry Allen’s thick skull through sheer force of will. “No, I mean, why are you here, _too?_ ”

Len shrugged, “Who knows, Flash. I’m as clueless as you are. Unless. _Do_ you know anything?”

Barry looked thoroughly unimpressed, turning away.

“Allen, wait!” Of course, telling the fucking Flash to slow down was an exercise in futility. But Scudder had to be up to something. He shot a blast of ice along the path ahead of Barry, watched in mixed gratitude as the Flash slipped and smacked into a telephone pole. Ouch. Allen gave him a look, red-faced with anger or embarrassment.

“You can’t go after Scudder, Flash.” Alone. “You don’t know what she’s capable of now.” And Len didn’t either.

“Because you’re so concerned about my safety, Cold? You sent me after her the first time. Let me do my job,” Barry said through grit teeth. He began to get up. Scudder’s face was reflected on the side of one of the buildings; Len shot, hit, broke the glass. But he couldn’t keep this up all day. There was more glass than Len had time, especially if Barry managed to get to wherever Scudder was leading him before Len. And Barry would.

In retrospect, Len should have expected it all to go to shit. One second, Barry was there. The next, gone. Or his body was, at least. Barry Allen was staring at him from the glass on the Wells Fargo across the street. Or, more accurately, staring past him. Yelling something. Well, fuck.

It took him twenty-six minutes and thirty-nine seconds to reach S.T.A.R. Labs.

“So nice to see you again, Dr. Snow,” Len said, voice icy. He didn’t enjoy his current lack of control. He turned to the rest of Barry’s team, nodding in turn. “Cisco. Detective West. I must say, S.T.A.R. Labs looks much better without so many rats in it. Although, I guess I bring the total to one. Can’t be letting folks like me past security, now can we?” He smirked.

“Where’s Barry?” Cisco asked, calmly.

“Wouldn’t you and I both like to know.”

xxx

Barry’s voice was hoarse from all the screaming. Mirror Master had said that it would be no use, but he hadn’t believed her. If Scudder had made contact with Barry, Barry could get a message out to Cisco, or Joe, or Caitlin, or Iris. Hell, he’d even take Snart at this point over spending one more minutes in the Mirror World.

“I told you, Flash. No one can hear you. Maybe, if you’re lucky, they can see you. Maybe Cold isn’t entirely useless and _someone_ can get us out of here.”

Barry sighed. “Why did you bring me here, Scudder?”

“The police are looking for me. You and your team are looking for me. It was only a matter time before someone realized I couldn’t get back out. And then what? Would I be forgotten? It’s easier to leave me here than to figure out how to get me back out. Safer, too, you’d think.”

“Why would you _want_ to get out? You’d just go back to jail.”

“There’s a reason they reserve solitary as a special punishment, Flash. I know Jordan Pruitt makes it sound _so_ fun, but being on the outside looking in is… torture. I’d rather serve a jail sentence than be stuck here for the rest of my life.”

“And you thought…?”

“I thought that people would care enough about _you_ to get you back out. Or Lisa would care enough about Len to threaten you into helping.”

“We would have—”

“I thought,” Samantha said, brushing a lock of her hair back and behind her ear, “that this would be everything I’d ever wanted. Being in this Mirror World, you learn a thing or two about what makes people tick. Here, I’m…omnipresent. Any reflective surface, and I’m there. The visions aren’t always clear, sure, but they’re there. It’s been humbling, to say the least. At first, I thought it would be an escape.”

“And it isn’t?”

“For someone named the Flash, you’re remarkably slow on the uptake.” She laughed, the bells in her voice echoing in the empty space. “What’s the fun in this? Where’s the challenge? I could do anything I wanted here, and no one would stop me. I could _be_ anything that I wanted to be.” A shard of glass flickered into existence in her hand, and she turned it over in her fingers. “But that was never the point. It’s no fun winning when there’s no one to play against.”

Barry surprised himself with the short bark of laughter he let out. “Is everything a game with you people?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You, Cold. It’s all about the chase, right? The game? You’re good at what you do, so you think there’s nothing else you _could_ do? Nothing else you _want_ to do?”

“Maybe.” She sighed. “Would you like to believe, Barry Allen, that everyone can find it in themselves to be like you? That everyone has had the advantages you’ve had? The opportunity, the history, to become who you are?”

“That’s not what I…” Barry trailed off. “I just don’t get it, I guess.”

“And you don’t have to, really, now do you? You just have to accept it. Not everyone can be a hero, Barry.”

There was a lull in the conversation as Barry turned what Sam had said over in his head. The problem with accelerated thinking was that sometimes you leapt to the quickest conclusion. Sure, you could go through millions of permutations and think through a situation, but if you did that all the time you’d go crazy. Barry didn’t think his worldview needed any…revising.

“Flash, I brought you here to get me _out._ ” All the energy left Samantha’s body as she slumped, resigned. “But it looks like all I’ve done is get us both _stuck_ here.”

xxx

It took Ramon the better part of four days of slow, methodical work to get Barry and Scudder out of the Mirror World, during which time Len made a point of lurking around S.T.A.R. Labs. He wasn’t particularly pleased with Scudder, but he was damn sure she wasn’t going to end up in Allen’s Pipeline.

As luck would have it, Scudder didn’t want his help. And Barry let her go walking out the front door. It was consoling that Detective West was wearing the same expression of shock and confusion. Barry sped away.

He showed up at Saints and Sinners two days later.

“Why?”

 “I… _am_ sorry, Barry,” Len said, slowly. “I was wrong.”

“About?”

“Don’t push it.”

“Pushing it. Scudder nearly killed me, the first time. She said you put her up to it. Why?”

Len stared at Barry.

“We appear to be at an impasse, Barry.”

“An impasse? Really. That’s what you’re going with.” Barry ran a hand through his hair. “I could take you in, Snart. I should. You nearly got me killed. _Multiple times_.”

“That wasn’t my intention. I swear. I have apologized.”

“And why should I believe you—especially now?” It was a fair question.

“I got you out of there, didn’t I?”

‘You got something out of it. Sam.”

“I didn’t know you were on a first name basis with her.”

“We talked.”

“About?”

“None of your business.”

Len filed that away.

“And, if you’ll recall, Scudder rejected my offer of help. I’ve no idea where she could possibly be.” Lisa did, but Len had decided not to push it.

Barry made a noise of recognition.

“So, where does this leave us? We’re not friends, Cold.”

“Can you really call me your enemy, Barry?”

There was a pause. “Yes.” Another. “No.”

“I can’t help but feel I’m getting mixed signals.”

Barry got up from the table. “Next time, buy me a coffee before you try to kill me, all right Snart?” Len could practically hear the smirk.

“If a coffee gets me a fight to the death, Allen,” Len drawled, “what would a whole dinner get me?”

A laugh. Barry walked towards the door, calling back “In your dreams, Leonard.”

“Now that’s just _cold_ , Barry,” Len called after him.

It took Len a moment before he came back into himself. What the _hell_ had that been?

He'd just have to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends,
> 
> This got a Kudos the other day and I stared at the computer for a full minute. I re-read the fic that day, and I remembered that I had this chapter sitting on my computer. Today, I added some context and a few quips and I posted it. This fic was meant to be ridiculous and sprawling. Hell, it was published to be compliant with the end of Season 1. I had no idea what would happen — though, admittedly, I did laugh every time something in canon happened that reflected (ha) something I'd been planning to do here.
> 
> That said, I would change a lot now! This fic was trying to do a lot of things at once. What's the mystery with Eddie? Will Len realize he's a decent person? (Will the author watch Legends of Tomorrow for context?) Hell, I even had plans to loop in a version of the Teen Titans for fun.
> 
> I apologize if this chapter seems rushed, especially considering it's been in development for the last year and a half. And especially since, as I'm sure you've guessed, it'll be the last one. I currently have no plans to continue this and so you'll have to content yourself on the non-ending. (I had a lot of science-y mumbo-jumbo planned for the middle bit. It got lost in the wash.) The end result is a fic that feels like it had some sort of direction and build and then just sorta... womp-womp.
> 
> (Or at least that's what I think.)
> 
> I'm not going to rule out writing fic in the future, nor am I going to totally rule out ever re-writing this, but for now, all I can say is:
> 
> Thank you so much for the support and kudos and comments. They really have meant the world to me. I wrote this fic (well, most of it) in the span of about two weeks because I saw something in The Flash (and in this pairing) that made me wanna create. That's an awesome feeling. I kept writing (hell, I came back to update it one last time) because all of you were so great. Don't stop being great.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @sparklezee, if you want to chat about, well, anything really. My door (or Askbox) is open!


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